The third round of the Australian Open begins in Melbourne on Friday and that means that we are at the stage of the opening Grand Slam of the year where the seeded players can meet for the first time in the tournament.
That means that we have an excellent schedule on all of the show courts with the majority of the action taking place on the place on the three main courts so we should be in for a cracking day of tennis out in Melbourne.
Rod Laver Arena
Four matches take place over on the main court on Friday, two in the day session and two at night and once again it is the defending women’s champion Aryna Sabalenka who gets the show up and running. She meets the in form Clara Tauson for a spot in the second week of the tournament. When they are done Carlos Alcaraz is on the Rod Laver Arena for the first time this week. He has a date with Nuno Borges. It is the men who open up the night session as well when Noval Djokovic takes on the promising Czech star Tomas Machac before we conclude with Jessica Pegula meeting Olga Danilovic.
Margaret Court Arena
We have an equally as good schedule over on the Margaret Court Arena which begins with the promising Diana Shnaider going up against the Olympic silver medallist Donna Vekic before the number two seed Alexander Zverev takes to the court to go up against the British talent Jacob Fearnley. The night session gets underway with the exciting Coco Gauff. She meets the former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez before the crowd are sure to get raucous for the closing match on this court when Jack Draper meets the home player Aleksandar Vukic for a spot in the second week.
John Cain Arena
There is a decent schedule over on the John Cain Arena on Friday as well and it starts out with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova looking to make the second week when she takes on the player who beat Qinwen Zheng in the last round in Laura Siegemund. When they are done one of our outright bets will be on court when Tommy Paul takes on Roberto Carballes Baena. The twilight session begins with a cracking match between two of the better unseeded players in the women’s draw when Naomi Osaka faces Belinda Bencic before we conclude with a battle of the Frenchmen when Ugo Humbert meets Arthur Fils.
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Best of the Rest
The other four matches take place on the outside courts on Friday mixed in with a load of doubles action. Over on the Kia Arena two seeded players meet after some doubles action when Paula Badosa takes on Marta Kostyuk before the Next Gen star Jakub Mensik faces Alejandro Davidovich Fokina before the schedule concludes with Jiri Lehecka going up against Benjamin Bonzi. There is one singles match over the 1573 Arena and that also features two seeded players when the teenager Mirra Andreeva takes on Magdalena Frech.
Betting
There isn’t anything I like in the women’s draw on Friday so I’ll take a couple in the men’s draw and they both come along in the night session. The first of those is for Tomas Machac to stay within 5.5 games of Novak Djokovic. I actually think the Czech has an excellent chance of beating the Serbian legend but I’ll play it safe and take him to cover the handicap. Djokovic has been taken to four sets by both Nishesh Basavareddy and Jaime Faria, both of whom are ranked outside the top 100 in the world rankings. Machac had to go the distance in the last round against Reilly Opelka but there weren’t many rallies in that match so it wasn’t the lengthiest match. Prior to that he had some excellent wins at the United Cup and you feel he is going to lay it down to Djokovic here. I wouldn’t be surprised if over five sets Djokovic finds a way on a court he has had so much success on but a 5.5 game handicap a little too big to ignore.
The other bet comes in the night match on the Margaret Court Arena where I just have to take on Jack Draper. Both he and Aleksandar Vukic have gone the distance in both of their opening two matches but the Draper ones have both gone into a fifth hour whereas Vukic has been done and dusted in 3h17 and 3h13 so he has been on court roughly two hours less than Draper, whose fitness isn’t at the levels we can take for granted at the best of times. You can get a 5.5 game handicap on Vukic here too and that just feels too big on a man who will be much the fresher. It might be that Draper finds a way to win here but he’ll have to win in straight sets to cover this line you would think and I don’t see that happening and then the longer it goes, in theory Vukic will be the stronger man so I can’t ignore a dabble on the win market either.
Tips
Back T.Machac (+5.5 games) to beat N.Djokovic for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back A.Vukic (+5.5 games) to beat J.Draper for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back A.Vukic to beat J.Draper for a 1/10 stake at 4.80 with Boylesports
Back him here:
