In hindsight I chose the wrong bet option in the Taylor Fritz versus Dominic Thiem match on Saturday, as the over games bet I’ve been using all week would have been fine.
Once again, Fritz was wasteful on his break chances and he falls to eight converted from 44 (18.6%) break opportunities against Thiem now in their four-match series, while Thiem improves to more or less double that percentage (36%).
In other news from Saturday, Gael Monfils is now saying that he didn’t say he injured his hand playing video games in the ATP Cup and that, in fact, he’s absolutely fine.
“I feel really good with my fitness. My movement is good. Somehow my hand, as I said, it is a misunderstanding with people because it is a disgrace to be honest with you. I'm fine, I'm in the second week, playing good tennis. I played the ATP Cup I was fine. I practiced here for one month and I was fine. I never said I was hurt. I think I'm a good name to make up good story like that.”
Gael Monfils in a nutshell right there and another example of how hard it is to try and gauge the fitness of players like Monfils, whose quotes are very often contradictory at best.
Week one of this year’s Australian Open has been a pretty typical one, with very little deviance from the norm in terms of either tie breaks played or underdog winners.
Round four of the Australian Open in the last 10 years has seen an average of just 19% underdog winners, but in the last three years there have been double that at 38%, with five of eight winning last year.
The last three years has also seen a lot of tie breaks, with all eight matches in round four last year featuring at least one, and an incredible 88% of the fourth round matches in the last three years featuring at least one breaker.
Weather-wise we’re expecting another warm, but hardly too hot, day at around 24C maximum in the shade, but with some wind around again at 25kph speeds.
Milos Raonic vs Marin Cilic
At these prices I’m happy to take a chance on Cilic in the hope that he’s physically fit and ready to go after a day off following a couple of five set battles.
Cilic has in the past shown that he’s capable of coming out and winning at a major after back-to-back five setters, as he did it at Wimbledon 2015 after five sets against Ricardas Berankis and a 4.5 hour marathon against John Isner.
He came back to beat Denis Kudla in fours sets the next match and Cilic’s record against Isner (9-3 win/loss) shows that the Croat doesn’t have much of an issue facing big servers.
Cilic has won 66% of his main level matches against the big servers in my database (also 67% in matches only played on outdoor hard) and he’s held serve 89.6% of the time.
Crucially, he’s also managed to break 15.5% of the time (15.7% on outdoor hard only) and if we look only at matches played at majors Cilic’s record is even better.
Over the longer format of the game at slams Cilic is 16-4 win/loss (7-2 on outdoor hard) against the big servers in my database – an 80% win rate – and he’s broken serve almost 20% of the time (18.3% on outdoor hard only).
His career series against Raonic is quite limited, with only three matches played (on clay, hard and indoor hard), two of which were priced with Raonic as favourite, and Cilic won two of them.
What’s interesting in the stats from those matches is that Raonic only managed to win 35.7% of his second serve points and Cilic held serve a whopping 94.3% of the time, winning 56.6% of his own second serve points.
In terms of current form, both men look this week like they might be on the way back towards their best after a year or so of poor form, largely due to injuries, but Raonic’s win over Stefanos Tsitsipas seems to have skewed the prices in the Canadian’s favour (perhaps combined with Cilic’s five-setters).
Tsitsipas has lost six of his last nine matches (should have been seven, but for a Kevin Anderson match point up failure) against the big servers in my database and has only broken them 7.5% of the time.
Cilic has a far better record against this type of opponent and while the Croat did have an MTO during the win over Bautista Agut it was only for a leg massage and this match is likely to be one of short, quick points.
Sunday looks a day where all of the underdogs have some sort of a chance to at least challenge the favourites and I wonder what that epic clash with John Millman has taken out of 38-year-old Roger Federer?
Federer faced Marton Fucsovics here in Melbourne two years ago at this same fourth round stage and won it in straight sets as a 1.02 chance, but after that Millman match and Fucsovic’s good form so far Fed is a 1.15 chance this time.
At his best Fucsovics is a formidable opponent, as he showed when pushing Novak Djokovic at the US Open in 2018, and if Federer is struggling a bit – which you might expect for a guy in his 39th year – Fucsovics is more than capable of talking advantage.
But he does lack a fair bit for me in terms of belief and mental strength and the price isn’t big enough today: Millman was over twice this price and was clearly an opponent that Fed struggles to break down.
Diego Schwartzman may well provide a bit of a test for Novak Djokovic though, with the little Argentine a great ball striker on the hard courts and he gave Djokovic all the Serb could handle when they met in Rome last May.
Schwartzman also took Djokovic to five sets – on clay again – at the French Open of 2018, but looking at the stats of those two matches he did very well to do so and with Djokovic serving really well at the moment it looks like perhaps the best Schwartzman can hope for here is a set.
Finally, there’s an interesting match-up on Melbourne Arena at around 05:00 UK time between Tennys Sandgren and Fabio Fognini and Sandgren at a price of around 2.40 is certainly a decent option here if you’re prepared to bet on a match involving Fognini.
Sandgren’s service hold/break total in his main draw career now at the Australian Open is an impressive 108.2 (90.1% holds) and he’s caused Fognini big problems on clay and grass so far in their career series.
The American won in straight sets on grass at Wimbledon last summer after Fognini had prevailed in two breakers on quick clay in Geneva and in a final set tie break on slower clay in Rio – both in 2018.
On the numbers of all three clashes as a whole Sandgren has held serve 86.7% of the time, compared to Fabio’s 82.2%, so in these conditions, where Fognini has never bettered the fourth round the in-form Sandgren is a decent option at this price.
I prefer Cilic though and he’ll be my one wager on day seven.
Best Bet
1 point win Cilic to beat Raonic at 2.60
