It was another one of those days on Sunday where, in hindsight, I picked the wrong underdog of the two I’d identified as decent options.
Marin Cilic revealed that he’d been suffering with a back injury, brought on by having to twist when serving due to the strong winds in an earlier round and that was exacerbated by a five-setter in round three.
In any event Cilic would have struggled to match the clutch play of Milos Raonic on the day, with the Canadian serving flawlessly and in Cilic’s words Raonic is: “Maybe [in] the best form I've seen him his whole career. I feel he has a really good chance of winning the tournament.”
Not sure about that, but on the day it was Tennys Sandgren that prevailed as underdog and I probably should have split the stake on Cilic and Sandgren, but it’s been that sort of tournament.
Moving on to Monday’s play in Melbourne and it’s the last of the round four matches, with play starting at around 01:00 UK time in the men’s draw, with Dominic Thiem taking on Gael ‘don’t call me injured’ Monfils.
The latest drivel to come from Gael (although he’ll probably deny it by the end of week is: “I love the game. I have the goal to win for the first a slam. I think that is keeping the fire in me and keeping me alert. I still have a strong belief that I can make it.”
It seems pretty likely that you won’t make it, Gael, and Thiem has proven a very tough opponent for Lamonf over the years, with Thiem winning all five of their completed matches (although, oddly, they should have met a further three times, but Monfils withdrew twice and Thiem once).
The stats of this career series make poor reading for Monfils, with the Frenchman only holding serve 65.1% of the time against Thiem, who’s held his own deal 89% of the time.
Thiem’s created a whopping 0.86 break chances per game against Monfils, who in turn has created just 0.22 such opportunities and it doesn’t get much more one-sided than that.
Three of those clashes were on clay though and while Monfils should be closer on a quick hard court in a day match, Gael’s reactive game has allowed Thiem to be the aggressor, where the Frenchman needs to be far more proactive and take time away from the Austrian.
That’s something Monfils is rarely comfortable with and I won’t be backing him as underdog today.
It’s set to be another cloudy, quite cool by Australian summer standards, sort of a day on Monday in Melbourne, with the temperature not getting higher than 22C in the shade and with a bit of wind around (up to 24kph speeds).
Rafael Nadal vs Nick Kyrgios
So, it will be quite cool (probably around 18C) when Nadal and Kyrgios go head-to-head for the eighth time in their careers at 08:00 UK time on Monday morning.
That’s unlikely to help Kyrgios, but NK did beat Nadal on a slow, high-bouncing outdoor hard court when they clashed in Acapulco a year ago, so the Aussie doesn’t necessarily need it to be fast to beat Nadal.
He also beat Rafa in Cincy and of course at Wimbledon way back in 2014 as an 11.24 chance, while Rafa prevailed on the lawns of the All England Club last summer in a fairly tight four-setter.
Kyrgios has also taken a set off Nadal on clay in Rome, so it’s true that the unorthodox game of Kyrgios is more than capable of causing problems for the Spaniard.
If we look at the stats of the two matches they played against each other in 2019 we find that Kyrgios held serve 92.4% of the time in those matches and Nadal 94.9% of the time and they played 0.57 tie breaks per set.
Looking only at matches played in slams it’s a similar story, with both men holding serve 93.4% of the time and playing 0.50 tie breaks per set, so I’m looking at the 3.40 about over 1.5 tie breaks here.
Much will depend, of course, on the mood of Kyrgios, but he’s looked fairly business-like by his standards this tournament and Nadal will surely see this as a serious challenge in Australian conditions that have rarely suited the Spaniard’s game.
I expect Nadal will probably get through it and the 3.60 about a Nadal 3-1 win is another option, but I would expect a performance from Kyrgios here in what’s usually a bit of a grudge match and on home soil with the crowd’s support this could be close.
I wouldn’t fall off my chair in shock if Kyrgios were to pull out the win, but he’s got to be right at the top of his game and chances are it’ll probably be a closeish loss.
Stan Wawrinka has had an interesting tournament so far, with what should really have been a defeat at the hands of Andreas Seppi followed by a bout of sickness and then a retirement handed to him by John Isner.
Now the former champ faces a big test in the form of Daniil Medvedev, who will surely be pretty happy with the lack of really hot conditions in this year’s Australian Open.
In truth the conditions haven’t been at all testing in this year’s main draw and another cool day will allow Medvedev to keep up his high-intensity baseline game that bit more comfortably.
When this pair met last season at the US Open neither man was fully fit, with Wawrinka again having the flu and Medvedev coming off a very tough hard court summer, with support tape all over his body.
But the fact that Medvedev makes Stan hit so many balls is probably the reason he’s been able to get by the Swiss in their two career meetings thus far and the Russian has been 8% better than Wawrinka in terms of second serve points won in this series.
He’s held serve much more often than Wawrinka (89.2% compared to 75.7%) and Stan is going to have to roll back the years and come up with a vintage performance if he’s going to take this one.
I’m not sure I see it happening, but the Swiss has a set in him and again the 3-1 set betting option looks a fair one here at a price of 3.75 about a Medvedev win by that score.
The other round four match today looks a tough one to call and with Andrey Rublev having played 33 sets of tennis already this campaign – twice as many as Alexander Zverev – I’m not sure I’d be backing the Russian as favourite here.
And especially in a match-up that hasn’t remotely favoured Rublev so far, with Zverev winning all three of their career clashes easily and dominating the stats.
Rublev has only held serve 50% of the time against Zverev so far in clashes on clay and hard courts, while Zverev has held 88.5% of the time (saving 81.3% of the break chances against him).
And their last meeting was only three months ago on quick hard in Shanghai when Zverev led 6-0, 3-0 and there have been signs from Zverev this week that he’s starting to play well again.
That said, Zverev hasn’t faced a lot so far in a poor Fernando Verdasco and Marco Cecchinato plus a tired Egor Gerasimov, so we’ll see a little better where Zverev is at during this match.
Rublev has obviously improved a lot since two of his three priors with Zverev and his confidence couldn’t be any higher after an undefeated start to the season and work done on his serve and movement.
It looks an even money match to me and not of any real betting interest, so I’ll risk the tie breaks played in Kyrgios/Nadal and the 3-1 to Medvedev as may bets for Monday.
Best Bets
0.5 points win over 1.5 tie breaks in Kyrgios/Nadal at 3.40
0.5 points win Medvedev to beat Wawrinka 3-1 at 3.75
