We have reached the penultimate day of tennis action at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Saturday where we have five matches taking place at the Ariake Tennis Centre. All five clashes are medal matches so there is plenty at stake on each one.
Somewhat surprisingly, Novak Djokovic is in action twice on Saturday and the best he’ll be getting is bronze medals after he was surprisingly beaten in the men’s semi-final on Friday. The one gold medal to be won on Saturday is the women’s singles.
Men’s Singles
Third place is the best that can be achieved for Novak Djokovic and Pablo Carreno Busta after they both lost their semi-finals on Friday. Djokovic lost from a set up to Alexander Zverev whereas Carreno Busta was simply outplayed by Karen Khachanov. In normal circumstances you would suggest that Djokovic is a near certainty but you just wonder how motivated he will be to win a bronze when winning is really the only currency for such a winner.
I’m not sure that is enough for me to take Djokovic on though. It might be that he wants a bit of revenge for the US Open defeat to the Spaniard last year when he got defaulted for hitting the line judge with the ball. All in all there is too much doubt for me to get involved in this match although if I was forced to bet I’d go with the Djokovic not being all that motivated line and take PCB to win but I’m not going to bet.
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Women’s Singles
The bronze medal match and the gold medal encounter make up the schedule in the women’s singles on Saturday. The bronze medal clash should be entertaining as Elena Rybakina takes on Elina Svitolina for what would be a commendable medal for whoever wins it however my betting attention comes in the form of the gold medal match where the Swiss star Belinda Bencic takes on the impressive Czech ace Marketa Vondrousova.
I’ve been very impressed with Vondrousova this week. She started with a win over Kiki Bertens but the win over Naomi Osaka caught the eye. She was fortunate that Paula Badosa had to retire from their quarter final but then she backed up that win over Osaka by thrashing Svitolina in the semi-final. To be fair to Bencic she has looked good this week as well although she doesn’t have quite the cast list on her CV. These two met in similar conditions to this in Miami earlier in the year when Vondrousova won and I think she’s a fair bet to complete the double here.
Doubles
The other two matches on the Saturday card come in the doubles competition where the bronze medal matches in the women’s doubles and the mixed doubles get played out. I’ve no really strong feeling on the women’s doubles match either way but I do think the favourites are justified market leaders in the mixed doubles bronze medal clash as Ash Barty and John Peers take on Novak Djokovic and Nina Stojanovic.
I mentioned above that there could very well be a lack of motivation for Djokovic who doesn’t pride himself on coming third. I don’t necessarily think Barty does either but her CV isn’t quite as decorated as that of Djokovic and any Olympic medal would do her no harm. I also think Barty and Peers as doubles specialists if you will have a bit of an advantage here. They are both good players who are no strangers to winning big matches. I think they’ll claim the bronze here.
Tips
Back M.Vondrousova to beat B.Bencic for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports
Back her here:
Back A.Barty & J.Peers to beat N.Stojanovic & N.Djokovic for a 3/10 stake at 1.67 with Betfair
Back them here:
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