The quarter final line up at the Australian Open will be finalised in Melbourne on Monday when the second half of last 16 matches are played out on the three show courts as we head towards the business end of the first Grand Slam event of the year.
We’ve seen some big names make it through to the last eight on the other side of the draw and three of the bigger names in the game will aim to make it through over the course of the day and night on Monday.
Rod Laver Arena
Elina Svitolina gets the honour of opening up the show on another full day of singles action over on the Rod Laver Arena. She will meet Veronika Kudermetova in the only women’s match of the day session. When they are done Jannik Sinner continues his title defence in what should be his toughest test of the tournament so far when he takes on the Danish number one Holger Rune. The night session begins with the women when the former world number one Iga Swiatek looks to make the last eight at the expense of the lucky loser Eva Lys who has had the week of her career so far. The final match on this court sees the one remaining Australian in the event in Alex de Minaur going up against Alex Michelsen.
Margaret Court Arena
As was the case on Sunday, we only have the two singles matches on the Margaret Court Arena and they are both in the day session. The action actually begins with a doubles match but when they are done the former finalist Elena Rybakina will look to make it back into the quarter final when she goes up against Madison Keys in a true powerful match which it is surprising isn’t on the Rod Laver Arena. When they are done the fairytale run of Gael Monfils could continue when he takes on Ben Shelton for a place in the last eight of the tournament.
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John Cain Arena
There are just the two singles matches over on the John Cain Arena on Monday as well and they complete the singles action. We have to wait for two doubles matches to be played out on this court before the first singles game comes along and when it does it will offer up a huge chance for two unseeded players to make the quarter finals when Lorenzo Sonego meets Learner Tien. When they are done arguably the pick of the matches on the day will be on court when Emma Navarro faces off against Daria Kasatkina in what they call the twilight session over in Melbourne.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like over the course of the day on Monday, not least because I have two outright bets on show in the women’s draw who will hopefully win their matches and be a win each away from setting up a no lose semi-final for me. I don’t want to oppose the number two seed Iga Swiatek and the other match looks like it could go either way so I’ll go to the men’s draw for a bet and it comes in the night session match between Alex Michelsen and Alex De Minaur.
These two men at the French Open last season and De Minaur won by a landslide but they also met in Mexico when Michelsen won and the latter result has to be significant here considering it was on a hard court. Michelsen has beaten a couple of quality operators in Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov in four sets for the former and straight sets for the latter. De Minaur was pushed fairly hard by Francisco Cerundolo who doesn’t have a huge amount of weapons on a hard court. Michelsen has a much bigger game than that and the 5.5 games he is in receipt of looks a game to two too high to me.
Tips
Back A.Michelsen (+5.5 games) to beat A.De Minaur for a 3/10 stake at 1.87 with BetVictor
