We found a winner with Frances Tiafoe on the handicap on Sunday in Melbourne on a very rare fourth round day in which three of the four underdogs won – and already three winning dogs in round four has equalled this decade’s record, with four more matches still to play.
I said yesterday that Stefanos Tsitsipas “can test Federer on his best form” and he held off 12 break point chances for Federer to edge it in four sets, with Fed noting the slow conditions and perhaps over pressing on his forehand, resulting in too many errors.
It’s set to be a little warmer in Melbourne on Monday, with highs of around 25C in the shade, and still a touch windy at around 23kph wind speeds.
Pablo Carreno Busta vs Kei Nishikori
Nishikori has certainly ridden his luck this fortnight so far, with an unexpected five setter against world number 176 Kamil Majchrzak ending in a retirement for the Pole, who led by two sets to love and then Ivo Karlovic was within a couple of big serves of knocking Nishi out in round two.
Then he got a little lucky again when round three opponent Joao Sousa was unable to compete for more than a set after a gruelling opening two rounds for the Portuguese, so I wouldn’t be going anywhere near this price of 1.17 on Nishikori here.
That’s just on form this past week and on two different sets of outdoor hard court stats he lags behind the numbers of Carreno Busta.
In PCB’s 28 main level matches on this surface in the past year he’s 19-9 win/loss and with a hold/break total of 108.7, which is just over 1% better than that of Nishikori in his 25 matches (18-7 win/loss).
And versus the current top-25 players in the last 12 months on outdoor hard PCB is 4-5 win/loss and with a 101.6 hold/break total, while Nishikori is 4-4 with a 96.6 hold break total.
On that you’d have to give PCB a good shot and while one would expect Nishikori’s greater variety and attacking potency to come out on top eventually, he’ll do well to cover a 5.5 game handicap.
Even against the top-25 PCB holds serve 80.5% of the time (in the last year) and here last year he only lost by a total of four games in four tight sets (three of them breakers) against Marin Cilic, who went on to make the final that year.
Indeed, no player has covered a -5.5 games handicap against PCB in a major on outdoor hard in his last 19 matches since Nick Kyrgios did it back in 2016 when PCB was playing just his eighth match on this surface at a major.
Players that have tried and failed include: Marin Cilic, Gilles Muller (twice), Dominic Thiem, Kyle Edmund, Denis Shapovalov, Diego Schwartzman, Fabio Fognini and Kevin Anderson.
It’ll be an evening match, so not the quickest of conditions, and for me Nishikori doesn’t have the power on his forehand after that wrist operation, plus he tends to lose concentration in matches these days, so he’d be delighted to get rid of PCB easily here.
Borna Coric struggled badly with his timing against Filip Krajinovic in round three, but was still able to win fairly comfortably, and assuming that was his poor match out of the way he’ll surely be too solid for the hit and miss Lucas Pouille.
Pouille has found it difficult against the kinds of opponent whose games are built around being solid and rarely missing, as his 14 losses in his last 19 matches against my group of ‘baseline grinders’ shows.
Unless that left thigh issue (he had it taped up again versus Krajinovic) rears up for Coric he’s simply likely to be too solid for a Pouille still lacking in confidence and coming to terms with a totally new coaching regime.
Daniil Medvedev perhaps hasn’t done himself too many favours by saying that Novak Djokovic is “not playing as he was before,” and concluding: “It’s not the same right now, you always have chances to beat him. That’s why he lost three times to ‘Next Gen’ players last year and I’m going to try to find my chances.”
In theory the very flat hitting of Medvedev has the potential to punch holes in the defences of Djokovic if he gets it right on the day, but he hasn’t shown the required level against the best players as yet.
In his last 10 matches on outdoor hard at main level versus the players I have listed as ‘top-10 quality’ he’s 2-8 win/loss and with a hold/break total of 92.4, while Djokovic has actually held serve more often against these players than versus all opponents (92.3% compared to 91.3%).
We haven’t seen the best of Djokovic yet and in faster conditions Medvedev has a shot of doing something, but the schedulers haven’t been kind to him and playing at 21:00 (approx.) local time on this slow Laver court reduces his chances substantially.
He’s talked about being very nervous ahead of his last two matches and presumably he’ll be even more so this time on this bigger stage at prime viewing time, so I’m not feeling an upset here.
Milos Raonic has been playing well so far this tournament, but based on his lack of ability to break the serves of my ‘top-10 quality’ group over the course of his career his main chance against Alexander Zverev probably lies in tie breaks.
In 30 main level matches (10-20 win/loss) his service hold percentage reduces from around 90% to 83.7% and he breaks only 8.9% of the time, but he frustrated Zverev by continually saving break points when the pair clashed at Wimbledon in 2017.
Zverev went 3 from 17 in break points won that day and his record against the big servers in my database on outdoor hard at main level is a patchy 9-7 win/loss and with a 100.6 hold/break total.
Raonic has held serve 91.5% of the time in his 34 career matches in Melbourne, but Raonic hasn’t played as many breakers as you’d think lately (only 0.23 per set in his last 27 matches on this surface) and Zverev has played only 0.12 per set in his last 32 on outdoor hard at main level.
They didn’t play any in that Wimbledon five setter and Laver is slow, so half a point on under 1.5 tie breaks at 2.47 looks the bet here, although on match odds I’d side with the German if I had to pick a winner.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Carreno Busta +5.5 games to beat Nishikori at 2.12
0.5 points win under 1.5 tie breaks in Raonic/Zverev at 2.47
