We didn’t get any luck at all on day two in Melbourne when two of our underdogs were forced to retire, having been well in contention early on in their matches.
Malek Jaziri was up a set and a break (and 6-4 up in the second set tie break) before fading and retiring in set four, while Jaume Munar was a mini-break up in both of his opening set breakers against Fabio Fognini, lost both and then retired.
Our third underdog was a big one in Steve Darcis and he was a tad unfortunate to come up against a Borna Coric, who, in his own words: “was serving, honestly, the best in my whole life.”
We have 16 matches from round two to think about on Wednesday and the weather forecast says to expect a cooler day, with highs of 27C in the shade and still a tad windy (24kph gusts possible).
Several of the players have been commenting that the courts are quicker here this year, but with many of them playing differently that’s just a general feeling that the likes of Fognini and Khachanov have expressed.
Round two of the Australian Open has produced 22% underdog winners on average in the last nine years (20% the last three years) and 49% of the matches have featured a tie break.
As usual in this round there are plenty of short-priced favourites (12 of 16 are 1.30 or shorter on Wednesday) and of those dozen shorties the one who may make a mess of it for my money has to be Fernando Verdasco.
The simple fact that Verdasco has lost six of his last eight second round matches (he was favourite in five of the eight) at hard court majors is enough to make punters wary of him at 1.22 against Radu Albot, who usually plays above himself in majors.
Albot has only been beaten in straight sets once in his last 13 Grand Slam matches and his hold/break total in his last 10 on all surfaces is a respectable 98.6 (only 89.3 in his last dozen main level outdoor hard court matches).
Even on grass Albot has played well at major level and while in theory it should be too quick for him here in theory Verdasco shouldn’t have lost to a similar style of player in Dudi Sela (after he beat Nadal in round one) in 2016 and over 3.5 sets at 1.81 looks the wager here.
Assuming that Andreas Seppi isn’t too tired after a fair bit of tennis in the last week or so he should simply be too good for Jordan Thompson in the 02:00 (approx.) match on 1573 Arena.
Seppi loves playing in Australia, where he’s won 18 of his last 22 matches at all levels, with the four losses coming against Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, Kyle Edmund and Alex De Minaur.
My worry for him in round one was a combination of possible fatigue and his weak record against big servers, but he overcame Steve Johnson fairly comfortably, and he said after that match: “I felt good physically. Like last year, I worked well during the off-season and have positive memories.”
He’s not going to admit to being tired of course, but assuming he’s fit the level that Seppi continues to find in this country should be too high for Thompson, whose record against the better opponents is weak.
Against the current top-25 Thompson is 0-11 win/loss and in those matches he’s held serve only 67.3% of the time, breaking a paltry 6.1% of the time, and all-time versus players ranked in the top-35 he’s 5-17, so a price of 2.20 of him beating one here seems short.
One Aussie that could exceed expectations though is John Millman, who has produced some good numbers from his last 10 main level matches versus the current top-25 (78.7% holds/28.1% breaks and 5-5 win/loss).
That’s way better than the 3-7 win/loss, 73.9% holds and 15.5% breaks of Roberto Bautista Agut versus top-25 opponents in his last 10 and there’s also very little in it in terms of each man’s stats on outdoor hard at main level versus all opponents in the last 12 months.
Millman is on 106.8, while RBA is 106.5, and given how RBA’s level fluctuated wildly against what’s left of Andy Murray in round one I’m happy to take Millman to do something here in front of his home fans.
The pair have similar styles, but Millman has been a bit more willing to be the aggressor this year and over games, over sets and Millman on the handicap (given his tendency to lose tight matches) look the ones here.
Elsewhere, Thomas Fabbiano is 1-7 versus the big servers on my list, but Mackenzie McDonald may have a set in him against Marin Cilic, with the big Croat having lost four of his last seven on hard courts against players 5’10” and under (Goffin twice, Evans, Schwartzman).
Yoshihito Nishioka is 0-13 versus the current top-25, but Karen Khachanov has only won in straight sets once in his last 13 main level matches versus players under 5’10” in height.
There’s a chance that Alex De Minaur might be feeling the pace by now after a lot of tennis, but I’m not sure that Henri Laaksonen will expose it, while I was toying with the idea of siding with Denis Kudla in some way against Diego Schwartzman.
Kudla’s five setter in the last round puts me off, but with his flat hitting he could rush Schwartzman if the American is on his game in these quick conditions.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Seppi to beat Thompson at 1.67
0.5 points win over 37.5 games in Bautista Agut/Millman at 1.91
0.5 points win over 3.5 sets in Albot/Verdasco at 1.81
