Australian Open Betting / Gary Boswell / 14 January 2009 /

Gary Boswell hasn't left the house for days in order to study the stats and watch tennis in a quest to find the most likely winner of the women's draw at the Australian Open this year. Here are his findings...

Talk about an open Open! The first major of 2009 starts in Melbourne on Monday and the women's singles has a list of potential winners longer than the dole queue in a credit crunch!
The vacuum at the top of the women's game was initiated by the retirement of Justine Henin last year and has intensified to the extent that the current world number one ranked player is incredibly a Major virgin! That's Jelena Jankovic who burst to the summit with her final appearance at Flushing Meadow but has to be one of the most unproven world number ones in the history of the game.

She celebrated her rise to the top in the time honoured women's tennis fashion by signing up with IMG as their new fashion model icon. The photos published in preparation for this new year of tennis have given Jelena that in vogue 'Thunderbird puppet' look (or is that just me in need of a new pair of glasses!). The obvious jokes about who will be pulling (or breaking!) her strings will be avoided!

That fashion aspect cannot be though. Not to be outdone, Serena Williams turned up for her press shoot in Sydney this week wearing a three million dollar necklace. Only borrowed for the occasion (in honour of the credit crunch). She played her conscience card by assuring us that all owned jewels are locked away underground where they belong!

Market watchers have spotted that all this off court nicety is designed to divert from the tennis. The lack of a dominant player and the confirmation on Sunday that defending champion Maria Sharapova was going to be absent again due to continued rehab on her shoulder injury means that the Williams sisters are screaming short favourites to prevail. Venus has shrunk from [7.0] to [5.6] in the wake of Sharapova's declaration and Serena remains in pole at [4.6] to achieve back to back majors after her triumph at Flushing Meadows.

There is no arguing that the Williams sisters are in their rightful place in the market after scooping two of the four Majors again last year but likewise there is no avoiding the continued feeling that their day is done. Serena showed trademark bottle to survive four match points against Samantha Stosur in her prep game earlier this week and also faced match point against Caroline Wozniacki earlier today.

The fact she got herself out of that mess is to her credit but getting into that situation in the first place was further proof for me that her playing star is waning. Sooner rather than later the new queen of world tennis is going to emerge. It looked after Roland Garros that Ana Ivanovic was ready to assume that crown but her form has plummeted and the self doubts came flooding back for her at Wimbledon. I watched her prep game for this last week in Brisbane against Amelie Mauresmo and I won't be taking any of the [11.5] as a result. She looked flaky again and scores a woeful one on the Boz's current form table.

Injury has struck Vera Zvonereva and Svetlana Kuznetsova and both their prices are consequently on the drift but there's little doubt that Russian and Soviet Federation players are where the wise money is accumulating in the women's game at the moment and the three players in white hot form are Dinara Safina (in from [11.0] to [9.8]) Elena Dementieva - as long as [20.0] at the weekend but in now to [14.5] following her win in Auckland - and Belarussian Victoria Azarenka whose price has shrunk from [38.0] to [32.0] after her inaugural Tour win in Brisbane last week.

The 19 year old showed awesome form in despatching Marion Bartoli in that final but the Frenchwoman's appearance in it was sufficiently interesting for the Boz to place her on his favourites table in the space vacated by Sharapova. Accused of favouritism I will be and there is no doubting that Bartoli has cemented her place in my affections following the money she won for me at Wimbledon in 2007. I do, however, remain objectively convinced that she has the game to disturb the top flight on her day so that her price of [250.0] is of certain interest now that she is back making finals again. She spent all of 2008 stricken with mononucleosis which necessitated long periods of bed rest in between tournaments.

An explanation of her indifferent form but no excuse for the poor serving show she put on in the Brisbane final which demonstrated that she is only a back to lay for this tournament rather than a tip for the title. I'm sure she has the potential to show her old form again in 2009 but I rate the percentage chance of her actually doing it as very 50-50.

More likely that the new queen emerging will be one of the young brigade. Sabine Lisicki, Daniella Hantuchova and Dominique Cibulkova head a long list of exciting young things on whom an eye must be kept but the one the market is rooting for this fortnight is the aforementioned Caroline Wozniacki whose price has dropped from [34.0] to [25.0] since the weekend. The tall serving Dane had a bit of a reverse in her warm up and I can't say that she's my strong fancy for Melbourne.

That honour falls to the experienced Dementieva who I still think had a watershed moment when she beat Serena in Beijing. She followed it with a semi at Flushing Meadow and has been the most consistent of a flighty bunch in the six months since. She does have a bit of a problem with Jankovic who did for her in the US. Her head to head against the Serb is appalling but against everyone else she is the form player and has a new improved rocket serve to add to the court coverage attribute that had her top of my ratings chart in the second half of 2008. She definitely leads the way for me in 2009 and the [14.5] still looks value both as a back to lay and as an outright tip along with Jankovic whose [9.6] might also seem long in a fortnight's time.

THE BOZ's RECOMMENDED BETS IN THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN OUTRIGHTS:

2pts ELENA DEMENTIEVA @ [14.5]
2pts JELENA JANKOVIC @ [9.6]
1pt MARION BARTOLI @ [250.0]

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: