We managed to bag two winners from our three bets in Melbourne on Thursday, thanks to big efforts from Andreas Seppi and Mikael Ymer, who both took their more celebrated opponents to fifth set deciders.
Seppi could have made our +1.5 sets bets on him much less stressful by serving out set two for a 2-0 lead against Stan Wawrinka, but he did it the hard way instead, while Ymer frustrated Karen Khachanov for long enough to land our overs bet in the end.
Egor Gerasimov was one hold of serve in set two away from making it three from three, but for once Alexander Zverev was able to play a clean, relatively error-free match to foil our overs bet by a couple of games in that one.
It was a poor day for underdog backers, with only Ernests Gulbis winning as betting underdog (as Taylor Fritz ended up starting favourite against Kevin Anderson) and it showed why I've been opting for more circumspect wagers on the underdogs this week.
Round three of the men’s singles at the Australian Open in the last decade has been a tough one for the underdogs, who’ve won only 10 of the last 64 matches in this round of the tournament (16%).
In three of the last four years only two betting underdogs have won in this round, while the percentage of matches that have featured at least one tie break in round three is about par for the course at 48%.
The weather looks like it’ll be okay on Friday, with no more than 23C temperatures and an average wind speed of around 17kph, so nothing much to concern the players there.
John Millman vs Roger Federer
This could either be the match of the day or a bit of a damp squib, depending on whether or not Federer hits and stays at top gear, but I’m happy to take a chance on the Aussie making a battle of this again.
Memorbaly, Millman took down Federer on a hot and humid night in New York at the US Open in 2018 and Fed has never found Millman easy to put away, being taken to a decider in Brisbane and having to play a tie break on grass in Halle last summer.
Indeed, Fed has by no means dominated the stats of this match-up, with Millman managing to hold serve 83.7% of the time against the Swiss and it’s not as if Millman gets many free points from his delivery, as we can tell from the fact that he’s only won 68.1% of his first serve points.
The key stat and the reason for that very respectable hold percentage of Millman’s is the fact that he’s won an impressive 56.8% of his second serve points against Federer in their three career clashes.
Federer has only won 49.7% of his second serve points against Millman and for some context Novak Djokovic has won 'only' 54.5% of his second serve points against Federer in their career clashes.
Millman hasn’t been able to break Federer much (only 10.2% of the time), but he’s carved out a similar number of chances to the Swiss (0.47 per game compared to Fed’s 0.53 per game).
We saw once again last night in the Karen Khachanov vs Mikael Ymer match that it’s not easy to hit winners at night on this new Green Set surface in Melbourne and with the raucous home crowd behind him this could be a tough assignment for Federer unless he’s at his absolute best.
Of these conditions, Federer said: “I think the surface is pretty quick with the new balls, but as the balls fluff up after a couple of games, it definitely slows down a lot.”
I’d certainly expect a far greater challenge for Federer here than he got from a poor Steve Johnson and a bedraggled Filip Krajinovic, who was coming off a five setter the previous round, with Millman safe in the knowledge that he can go toe-to-toe with Fed and with the crowd behind him.
The same bet we had when these two clashed in New York looks the wager again here and that’s Millman +2.5 sets at 2.45.
That’s the only bet I’ll take on today, with perhaps Marin Cilic, Tennys Sandgren and Tommy Paul the best of the other underdogs on day five.
Cilic hasn’t been near his best for some time now, but he’s proven a lot for Roberto Bautista Agut to handle over the years and if the Croat’s couple of wins here have got him believing again this could be tight.
This pair went five sets here last season, with RBA, who was then a 2.53 underdog, prevailing in the decider, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see this go long again, with over 4.5 sets at 3.60 an option here.
I’d be very happy to see RBA get this done quicker than that, but he looks short at 1.35 for this potentially dangerous encounter if Cilic can find some of his old form.
The five set battle that Tommy Paul had with Grigor Dimitrov may just have tipped the scales in favour of Marton Fucsovics in their clash, but I wouldn’t be backing Fucsovics at 1.50 here.
I’ve had Fucsovics in my list of underdogs twice already this week, but Paul has been very good so far this season and it may only be fatigue that gets the better of him here.
Fucsovics has a fine record in the price range of 1.40 to 1.59, with a 9-3 win/loss mark and 5-0 on outdoor hard at main level so far in his career.
Sam Querrey and Tennys Sandgren produced one solitary break of serve between them in almost three hours of tennis when they clashed at Wimbledon last summer and a similarly tight one is likely here.
At the prices I’d lean towards Sandgren because of his far superior record here of 6-2 win/loss now and with a hold/break total of 107.1 compared to Querrey’s 14-13 and 101.7.
Querrey has never been past round three of the Australian Open in his career and is 0-5 in this round and 1-15 win/loss in sets played.
What puts me off Sandgren is that he seems to go into his shell when facing fellow Americans and he’s yet to beat one in seven attempts at main level.
I was lucky enough to be courtside at the Parque Sarmiento in Buenos Aires when Guido Pella and Fabio Fognini clashed in the last year of the ‘real’ Davis Cup in 2017 and it was a typical Fabio performance that day.
Pella won the first two sets and Fognini the last three in a mini-epic and I’d expect a similarly up and down and probably quite lengthy encounter between the pair again here.
On current form Stefanos Tsitsipas, fresh from a walkover last round, should be too much for Milos Raonic, although the Greek’s fairly weak return game could mean he has to win a tie break or several.
That’s assuming that Raonic is fit, which he very rarely seems to be these days.
Novak Djokovic should face more of a challenge from Yoshihito Nishioka than he did from Tatsuma Ito and that could be quite entertaining, with Nishioka one of the best movers around and perhaps capable of matching the Serb for a while.
The defending champion’s ATP Cup team-mate Dusan Lajovic is enjoying himself at the moment, having won that event with Djokovic and co. and he could well make life tough for Diego Schwartzman in Lajovic’s current mood.
Indeed, the pair went all the way to 11-9 in the fifth here two years ago when they clashed and while Schwartzman is expected to prevail the over games looks a decent option in that one.
Best Bet
0.5 points win Millman +2.5 sets to beat Federer at 2.45
