The quarter finals of the Australian Open begin at Melbourne Park on Tuesday when some of the biggest names in the game face off against each other for a place in the semi-finals.
We lost the former champion Stan Wawrinka on Monday much to the annoyance of those of us who backed him outright but on the positive side Jo Konta made it through a marathon to put herself one game away from landing a double figure quarter win punt. She doesn’t even face a seed in the quarter final either.
Monday was a decent day on the betting front with both bets advised in the two late women’s matches sailing safely in without too much in the way of angst so hopefully we can build on that on Tuesday and the rest of the week.
We’ve three mouth watering matches on the schedule on Tuesday and one which doesn’t match them on paper but could quite easily steal the show so it should be a great day in Melbourne.
It all begins on Rod Laver with the lesser anticipated women’s match between Agnieszka Radwanska and Carla Suarez-Navarro. The Spaniard had to deal with all sorts of shenanigans across the net in her last 16 match with Daria Gavrilova but despite being blown away in the first set she dealt with everything and came through in the end.
Her big problem here is if she starts like that again this is going to get pretty messy very quickly because although Radwanska also went the distance in the previous round she’s been playing some brilliant tennis in this tournament.
I don’t expect Radwanska to lose this but I can’t decide if I think CSN will win a set or not so the best thing is to leave the match alone and keep the powder for the rest of the day.
The second women’s match is the latest renewal of the Serena vs Maria rivalry when Serena Williams takes on Maria Sharapova. This is dubbed a rivalry because they are probably the two biggest names in the female game but in recent times it has been more a mismatch than a rivalry.
They have met 20 previous times with Serena winning 18 of those battles including the last 17. It would be hard to call many of them battles as Sharapova has only taken one set off Williams since 2008, some 13 meetings in total so this rivalry is very one sided.
In truth although Sharapova has looked much more focused in this tournament I’ve seen nothing that convinces me this isn’t going to be one sided. Serena might be returning from injury this week but she has shown no signs of fatigue or any lingering injury. She has been her clinical, dominating self and that is an opponent I don’t think Sharapova has the tools to compete with.
The only question to ask is whether to back Serena to cover a 4.5 game handicap or go under 20.5 games. Given that nobody has taken more than two games in a set against the American since the opening round I’ll go with the latter option.
Moving into the men’s draw and the opening quarter final sees Roger Federer going for another Grand Slam semi-final when he takes on Tomas Berdych with the Czech star looking for his third straight semi in Melbourne.
These two had very different last 16 matches. Federer blew David Goffin away in a whirlwind of brutal brilliance while Berdych was taken the distance by Roberto Bautista-Agut. That doesn’t mean to say Berdych hasn’t played well in this event because he has.
Federer has looked very good in the event so far though. He is really aggressive right now and taking the ball so early and looks ultra-confident but if Berdych can get into the match early he’s more than capable of pulling off an upset here. I’m on Berdych to win this quarter which is effectively now to win this match so I’m cheering for him and that punt is enough to keep me interested here.
The evening match sees Novak Djokovic taking on Kei Nishikori in what has the potential to be a belting clash. Nishikori stoked up a bit of a rivalry when he beat Djokovic in the semi-final of the US Open two years ago and the dominance he displayed against Tsonga in the last round suggests he could cause Djokovic problems here.
The whole field will be cursing Gilles Simon at the minute. The Frenchman took Djokovic the distance on a day where the world number one made 100 unforced errors in the previous round but he still couldn’t beat him and open the tournament right up. Djokovic will be eager not to play so poorly again.
Generally matches between these two are tight affairs and even when he goes down Nishikori often wins a set. Their last meeting at the o2 Arena last year wasn’t close but Djokovic was as close to unplayable as a tennis player can be that afternoon while Nishikori was carrying an injury. Djokovic clearly isn’t in that form this week from what we’ve seen.
I’d be surprised if Nishikori won this one although I certainly wouldn’t rule it out if he can play to the level he did against Tsonga but I certainly think the Japanese player can win a set. Simon just won two against Djokovic and Andreas Seppi took him to a tie-break and Nishikori is more aggressive and takes the ball earlier than both of those so he has the potential to get Djokovic on the run more.
You can get even money on this match to go beyond three sets and I’m pretty confident it will have four at the very least and hopefully from a spectacle point of view it can go the distance.
Back S.Williams vs M.Sharapova – Under 20.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
Back N.Djovokic vs K.Nishikori – Over 3.5 sets for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
