Australian Open Betting: Keovathong amongst a number of unlikely first round winners in the women's draw

Australian Open Betting / Gary Boswell / 16 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

The Boz posted a strong score on these pages last year when asked to identify potential first round upsets in the Women's Tennis. Betfair woke him in the small hours UK time to witness the draw for the upcoming Australian Open. Here is his report.....

Both British girls drew seeds in the top half of the draw and many will be expecting us to have no representation in the second round as 110 ranked Melanie South must face The Boz's outsider tip for the tourney Marion Bartoli, whilst 54-ranked Anne Keothavong drew world number 18 Anna Chakvetadze.

The seeds both have 2-0 head to heads but neither of the British girls is without hope. South won a second set tie break against Bartoli in Montreal last year and proved throughout that match that she was capable of competing. With Bartoli and Chakvetadze both notorious blowers of the hot and cold variety, all things are possible on the day and Keothavong will feel particularly encouraged by her recent form improvement that has seen her jump 60 places in the rankings. Her two defeats against Chakvetadze were both four years ago when Anna was barely out of her diapers and times they have changed since then.

The main difference is that Keothavong is now the one on the upward curve and so long as she goes in positively, I would give her a definite chance with her A game.

The two top ten seeds that I consider vulnerable in the first round also feature in the top half of the draw. Players of the outrights might like to note that Jelena Jankovic has been given a relatively easy first two rounds whereas no.3 seed Dinara Safina has a bit of a stinker in the first round against compatriot Alla Kudryavtseva. The fellow Russian is ranked a lowly 77 so the price is sure to be huge but in their one meeting on the tour last year, Kudryavtseva scored an 18-14 game victory (6-7 6-0 6-7) that was decided in Safina's favour courtesy of the tie break system.

I think that tells you that Safina is the cannier match player and of course Marat's little sis has been a massive improver in the past 12 months to reach her new elevated position. Can we really expect her to lose this one? Not on the tennis form but two compatriots playing a similar game from the same coaching stable always makes for a strange match atmosphere and Kudryavtseva turned that to her advantage against Sharapova at Wimbledon you may remember. A shock not without precedent if this one comes in.

Stronger in the reasoning is the chance of Magdalena Rybarikova in her game against world ranked number 7 Vera Zvonareva. The latter had a well documented injury problem throughout 2007 and had a recurrence in the warm up tournament last week in Australia. She has to be vulnerable to that and faces a 57 ranked Slovakian in particularly good form with the scalp of world 13 Flavia Pennetta under her belt in Auckland this week. Of all the top ten seeds, I rate Zvonareva the most likely to fall first round.

Other pix against the book are rated in descending order:

No. 1: Russian Vera Dushevina who is 86 in the world and sure to be a price against her in form opponent, the number 41 ranked Iveta Benesova who made final in the warm up this week. Dushevina has a crushing 4-0 head to head against Benesova including two recent straight sets wins on the featured hard court. That kind of past record makes her a very reliable betting proposition at what is sure to be big odds.

No. 2: Hungarian Melinda Czink - who is rated 100 - can bring her greater experience,excellent current form and 1-0 head to head record to bear against the talented youngster Sorana Cirstea - ranked 36 - who has wilted in the big arena before.

No.3 French veteran Severine Bremond - ranked 94 - will be the big outsider against glamourpuss Nicole Vaidisova - ranked 51 - but this is an upset that has already happened. Last year in the US Open. I watched that game and saw the 19 year old crumble, as she has so many times, to the relentless barrage of the wily and experienced player. On current form, it could happen again.

No. 4 German youngster Tatjana Malek is ranked an astonishing 239 but has a 1-0 head to head over the 18 year old Japanese talent Ayumi Morita who I have been tracking for the last 12 months. Morita is ranked 76 but many will consider that disappointing considering her talent. She has demonstrated naivety on several occasions and comes in to this on the back of an injurious defeat at the hands of Anne Keothavong who simply played the experience card against her. Malek is only 21 herself but can do the same if she plays with belief. Morita is currently demonstrating terrible self doubt.

No. 5 Fellow German youngster Sabine Lisicki would normally not be a first round outsider but has drawn talented Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak which is the match of the first round for me. A very tight 1-1 on the head to head and Wozniak the better ranked at 33. Lisicki is on a big upcurve though and won their latest encounter at Indian Wells very convincingly. I won't be following Lisicki as I normally do as a back to lay in the outrights because she has drawn a tough corner that contains home favourite Sam Stosur and still my idea of tournament favourite Elena Dementieva (whose price has been crashing since she demolished Serena and Safina in Sydney this week - hope you got on!) but I will be following Lisicki to win her first round encounter which looks well within her scope.

That's the outsiders but I always like a couple of first round bankers aswell. That honour is bestowed on Sybille Bammer - who will be short to beat Lucie Safarova for the fifth time that they have met on the tour - and Sara Errani who has a tight call against in form Russian Maria Kirilenko but could be a good price to repeat the 2-0 head to head that includes a convincing 6-1 7-5 from the 2008 tournament in Portoroz.