The first week of the Australian Open concludes on Saturday and it does so with another wonderful session of tennis as we start to get towards the business stage of the opening Grand Slam tournament of 2022.
It is the bottom half of the draws in action on Saturday which means that the likes of Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Paula Badosa and Aryna Sabalenka are among the stars that are on show throughout the day.
Rod Laver Arena
Danielle Collins gets the main court treatment on Saturday. She meets one of the few women who are surprise packages in getting to this stage in Clara Tauson. Two unseeded players then get a rare chance to shine on the Rod Laver Arena at this stage of the tournament in the second match of the day when Kaia Kanepi takes on the home wildcard Maddison Inglis before the men close out the day session when Stefanos Tsitsipas meets the enigmatic Benoit Paire.
It is the men who kick things off in the night session as well with another home favourite on show as Alex de Minaur looks to make it into the second week of his home Grand Slam when he meets the solid Spaniard Pablo Andujar. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova then takes to the court to close out the day. She faces a Sorana Cirstea who had a very good win over Petra Kvitova in the first round and will be looking to repeat that level here.
Margaret Court Arena
It could be argued that the schedule on the Margaret Court Arena is better than the one on the main court and it gets underway with Tamara Zidansek meeting the conqueror of Garbine Muguruza in the previous round in Alize Cornet before Aryna Sabalenka looks to make it into the second week when she takes on Marketa Vondrousova before the day session concludes with a repeat of the US Open quarter final between Botic van de Zandschulp and the number two seed Daniil Medvedev.
It is the women who will start up the night session on the Margaret Court Arena and we should get a feisty and hard hitting affair between the former French Open champion Iga Swiatek and Daria Kasatkina. When they are done it will be the turn of Andrey Rublev to look to book his place in the second week of the tournament. He meets the former US Open champion Marin Cilic who has begun 2022 fairly strongly.
John Cain Arena
As with Friday, there is just the two singles matches over on the John Cain Arena with the women gracing the court in the day session. That sees Simona Halep looking to continue her charge towards another Grand Slam title. She will face the woman who took care of Emma Raducanu in the previous round in Danka Kovinic. The men’s match comes in the evening session and that sees the British number one Dan Evans on show. He will go up against the US Open semi-finalist Felix Auger-Aliassime in one of the better matches on the day.
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Best of the Rest
There are just the four singles matches dotted in between the plenty of doubles action that is taking place around the grounds on Saturday and among those on show in them are Elise Mertens and Roberto Bautista Agut. There will be a decent crowd on Court 3 towards the evening when the home wildcard Christopher O’Connell is on show while we also get another chance to see the improving Italian ace Jannik Sinner.
Men’s Betting
I’m a little surprised you can get 4/5 on Roberto Bautista Agut to beat Taylor Fritz. He leads their head to head 5-1, two of which have been on a hard court and of the two men he clearly has the better pedigree in Grand Slams. I mentioned that head to head record because Fritz is a big server but it shows that RBA has no issue with getting the better of it and if he can get the American into some rallies you would back the Spaniard more often than not.
Bautista Agut only dropped four games in an absolute demolition job in the previous round and should be coming into this match with decent confidence behind him. To be fair, Fritz has been decent enough himself so far but I do think there is level between these two in the rallies and even in these conditions I expect RBA to get involved in a number of those and come out on top in many of them. For my money he should be shorter than what he is.
Women’s Betting
I’ll also take just the one in the women’s draw which comes deep into the night session when Sorana Cirstea takes on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in what should be a cracking contest. I like Pavlyuchenkova and I wouldn’t be surprised if she wins this match but I think Cirstea is overpriced, especially if she can replicate the level she had when she took Kvitova to the cleaners in the opening round, surrendering just four games.
Pavlyuchenkova is the number 10 seed this week but much of her ranking came on the clay court. She flattered to deceive on the hard courts last season with just 15 wins from the 14 hard court events she played and she hasn’t really faced anything in the first two rounds here. This is a real upgrade on what the Russian has played so far and it might be that she gets found out. Cirstea has a pretty decent record against the bigger names in Slams and will take the game to Pavlyuchenkova. She’s value to take care of her.
Tips
Back R.Bautista Agut to beat T.Fritz for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Coral
Back him here:
WON – Back S.Cirstea to beat A.Pavlyuchenkova for a 3/10 stake at 2.80 with BetVictor
Back her here:
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