The Australian Open heads into day six as our team looks to find more value on the men’s and women’s side of the tournament!
‘The Demon’ Alex De Minaur heads to Margaret Court Arena tonight against feisty Italian Fabio Fognini in a match steeped with huge value at the head to head.
Best bets below!
#16 F.FOGNINI V #21 A.DE MINAUR
margaret court ARENA 9:00PM
21-year-old Alex de Minaur overcame a tough test in Pablo Cuevas to come through to the third round remarkably composed, coming back from a break in the third set to take it in three.
The Aussie is the last remaining local hopeful in the Men’s Singles draw, after Nick Kyrgios lost a five-set epic against Dominic Thiem on Friday night.
The lack of a crowd for at least the next five days of the Australian Open is a crushing blow to what has been an incredible reminder of how engaging spectator sport can be, especially for the local players.
It is sure to affect Alex de Minaur in this third round match as he tries to go one further than he ever has done before in Melbourne by reaching the round of 16 against the experience of Fabio Fognini.
The Italian is rarely the crowd’s favourite in his matches and looks to be in fine form after his five-set slog with Salvatore Caruso.
If he can get to grips with De Minaur’s speed around the court he should find some joy here.
Fognini can find angles on court that very few others can when he’s on song but De Minaur is one of the fastest players on tour and should be able to chase more of them down than the Italian is used to.
Without a crowd to distract Fognini and spur on De Minaur the Italian represents huge value at the $5.75 quote.
Suggested Bet: Fabio Fognini head to head $5.75
#5 S.TSITISPAS V M.YMER
JOHN CAIN ARENA 4:00PM
This will be the first time this pair do battle on the hardcourt in their careers with Tsitsipas taking the honors the first they met with a 6-1, 6-3 victory on clay in Marseille.
Tsitsipas had a tough win against Kokkinakis in the second round to overcome his opponent in 5 sets (6-7, 6-4, 6-1, 6-7, 6-4).
The 22-year-old Greek was extremely aggressive that match on his way to blasting 80 winners.
Regarding the service games, Tsitsipas recorded 17 aces and he was not very steady on his 2nd serve to score 10 double faults.
Tsitsipas was extremely efficient on serve to win 86% (80/93) of his 1st serve and 56% (30/54) on the second serve. This was one of the main reasons for not conceding a single break during the match which bodes well for such a young player.
He was able to break Kokkinakis 5 times after converting 23% of his break points (5/22).
Ymer, on the other hand, showed he has some staying power to hold him in good stead if the game goes to a marathon.
The Swedish youngster stunned Hubert Hurkacz of Poland in five sets, 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. He then held off an inspired challenge from 17-year-old Spanish starlet Carlos Alcaraz, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6(5).
We look set for a quality game, but Tsitsipas has the runs on the board and he will progress deep into the tournament.
Suggested Bet: Stefanos Tsitsipas to win 3-0 at $1.42
#1 a. barty v #29 e.alexandrova
margaret court arena 7.00pm
World number one Ash Barty faces the Russian challenge Ekaterina Alexandrova, the 29th seed in the third round of the 2021 Australian Open on Saturday.
This will be the very first meeting between the top seeded Barty and the world number 32 Alexandrova.
It looked to be one-way traffic in Barty’s direction but fellow Aussie Daria Gavrilova showed excellent fight in pushing the second set into a tie-breaker and then getting herself two set-points before the world number finished off in straight sets.
In both the sets, Barty suffered early breaks of serves but eased her way back to get herself into a winning position. The first set saw her grab it 6-1, reeling off six games in a row after dropping the first game on serve and in the second she was down 0-2 before winning five in a row which set her up for the victory.
For Alexandrova, after having disposed of Martina Trevisan in straight sets in the first round, it was a 6-3, 7-6 triumph over Barbora Krejcikova second-up.
The match started on a strong note for the Russian, as she raced off to a 3-0 lead with a break of serve and while wasting three more break-points, Alexandrova wasn’t quite challenged on her own serve, closing it out 6-3 before grinding away to win the second set.
Despite Barty’s less than clinical performance in the previous round and the question mark over her fitness with regards to her thigh, she still starts a favourite to comfortably win this.
Suggested Bet: Ash Barty to win 2-0 at $1.70
