Australian Open Tips Day Four: Home girl Stosur may be the latest Aussie to exit

Australian Open Betting / Ben Caudell / 21 January 2009 / 1

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Ben Caudell on the best bets for day four of the Australian Open.

Wednesday was not so good for our bets with Novak Djokovic storming through to the next round with a straight sets win over Frenchman Jeremy Chardy. The Serb rediscovered the form that crowned him the 2008 Champion. Djokovic's serve was on fire, he hit 71% first serves and managed to break Chardy six times (from six opportunities). There's no wonder this was such a formality.

Djokovic will now play Amer Delic, who knocked Paul Henri Mathieu out of the tournament in another epic five setter (9-7 in the fifth set), then there is a possible match against Marcos Baghdatis looming in the fourth round followed by a likely tussle with Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals.

There were only two notable upsets yesterday. I doubt anyone predicted that Yen-Hsun Lu would beat David Nalbandian or that Anna Chakvetadze would lose to Jelena Dokic. The reformed Aussie spent most of 2008 rediscovering her form on the ITF circuit and looks to be on her way back into the top 100 in the rankings, she is currently ranked just 187 in the world!

Thursday's Bets

Tommy Haas v Flavio Cippolla: Although Haas convincingly defeated the young, talented Argentinean, Eduardo Schwank, in straight sets in the first round, he has played very little tennis since the US Open where he lost to qualifier Giles Muller. Cippolla on the other hand has only dropped a mere three sets from his last nine matches on hard court and has won eight of his last 10 matches defeating the likes of Stanislas Wawrinka and Dmitry Tursunov.

Selection: Lay Haas 3-0 @ [2.58].

Sabine Lisicki v Samantha Stosur: Home girl Stosur had a tough first round match against clay courter Klara Zakopalova, eventually winning in two tie-break sets. Sabine Lisicki on the other hand defeated talented Aleksandra Wozniak in straight sets and looks the fresher of the two. Stosur has a head-to-head advantage of 2-0 and the home court advantage, however she often chokes when ahead and I can see Sabine taking advantage of this.

Selection: Lay Samantha Stosur 2-0 @ [2.6].

Good Luck.

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boz | 21 January 2009

I laid the Chak after seeing her struggle against the heat in Round one against Keothavong. Main reason was Dokic being a previous world No.4 and reputedly free at last of demented daddy! It was a classic against Chakvetadze I thought and she might win again.
Round 3 looks well laid out for the French duo of Cornet and Bartoli who have both brought their A game to the tournament