Thursday was close to being a very good day for our bets in Sydney and Auckland, with our 25-1 outright Cam Norrie moving on to the semi finals, but two final set tie break defeats cost us.

Our big-priced outright in Sydney, Yoshihito Nishioka, was beaten that way, while a real up and down affair between Pablo Carreno Busta and Jan-Lennard Struff ended in a 9-7 win for the German over our underdog PCB.

So, Friday is semi finals day at the Sydney International and ASB Classic and I said yesterday that there was a lot to like about Cam Norrie’s chances against Taylor Fritz and once again our man has a fine chance on Friday against Jan-Lennard Struff.

The big German is 0-5 in main level semi finals and he hasn’t even won a set in them so far, and combined with his weak quarter final record we have one reason why I rarely opt for Struff on the outrights.

Hopefully, Struff will have left a lot out on court in that three-hour night match against Carreno Busta and he’s lost eight of his last 11 main level matches when priced up as an underdog priced between 2.10 and 2.40.

He’s also 6-15 win/loss against left-handers at main level (0-4 in completed matches on outdoor hard) so we have to be bullish about our chances in this one.

I said at the start of the week and also in my preview of Tennys Sandgren’s match against Max Marterer that I wouldn’t be surprised if the motivation of having a load of points to defend could herald a good week from Sandgren and so it’s proven.

And I wouldn’t count him out against Philipp Kohlschreiber in the semi either, with Kohli beating very little so far this week: Fabio Fognini was on minimum effort mode after a MTO early in their quarter final on Thursday.

Kohlschreiber is another one with a weak record in semi finals on a hard surface, with a surprisingly poor 3-13 win/loss mark on all hard courts (2-3 on outdoor hard only) and he hasn’t won one since here in Auckland in 2013 (last one played was back in 2014).

Sandgren will be well up for this and although the stats say Kohli should win it (he’s won 12 of his last 14 main level matches on this surface when priced between 1.40 and 1.60) he could well find Sandgren a determined opponent.

At the Sydney International we have a similar situation in one of the semi finals to a scenario I talked about last week, in that Gilles Simon has now played back-to-back three setters and he has a poor record in his next match in best-of-three events.

Last week in Pune Kevin Anderson defeated him in straight sets after Simon had played back-to-back three-setters and this time he has the added issue of having finished playing at around 01:30 local time – meaning a very late night for veteran.

He must now come out and take on Alex De Minaur, whose own match finished many hours earlier and that clearly puts Simon at a major disadvantage, but the layers have jumped on that and made De Minaur not far off half the price he was when he beat Simon in Tokyo only three months ago.

De Minaur should win it in these circumstances. But there’s no value in him at all at a price like 1.48 for me.

A better choice for my money would be to side with Andreas Seppi in some way in the first Sydney semi final at around 04:30 UK time in what will be a first career meeting between Seppi and Diego Schwartzman.

Seppi has a habit of playing some of his best tennis in Australia, where the quickish conditions help him to get a bit more out his serve and aid his main weapon of the forehand.

After a struggle on second serve in his opening two matches, where he won only 40% and 30% on his second ball Seppi ramped it right up to 75% against better opposition in Stefanos Tsitsipas on Thursday in a come from behind win over the top seeded Greek.

Schwartzman’s better hard court hold/break stats and superior movement make him favourite for this one, but I’m not sure it should be by this much and the Argentine has lost five of his last nine main level matches when priced up between 1.40 and 1.60.

Both men rely on their forehand to win the bulk of their points, but if Seppi can serve well I’d expect a tight one here, with over 2.5 sets at 2.45 worthy of a small wager.

Seppi’s awful record in semi finals at main level in which he’s lost 12 of his last 13 completed semis on all surfaces (he’s never made a final on outdoor hard in 15 years on the main tour) puts me off backing him to land the upset, but I expect him to test Schwartzman on Friday nonetheless.

Best Bet

0.5 points win over 2.5 sets in Seppi/Schwartzman at 2.45