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Murray shocks Berrettini
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One-sided day in prospect
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Fucsovics the best spot
Murray records epic win over Berrettini
Temperature and rain caused delays on Tuesday at Melbourne Park, and there are still a number of matches to conclude on Wednesday. This includes our pick John Isner versus Adrian Mannarino, with the big-serving American a set to the good.
Among the weather, the likes of Novak Djokovic, Casper Ruud and Andrey Rublev all progressed without an abundance of fuss, although Alexander Zverev was surprisingly tested by the Peruvian clay-courter Juan Varillas, needing to fightback from 2-1 down in sets to win in a four-hour epic. Winner in another epic was Andy Murray, who came through a final set tiebreak against Matteo Berrettini in a superb victory taking almost five hours.
Nadal and Medvedev among Wednesday's heavy favourites
Monday's winners meet in round two on Wednesday, and there's the usual array of heavy favourites. Tomorrow, these include Rafa Nadal, Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Jannik Sinner and Felix Auger-Aliassime, who are all around 1.101/10 or below against lower ranked opposition and it would be a real shock if any were ousted by the end of play on Wednesday.
Fucsovics' return game should assist versus Harris
In fact, there are only three matches in which the favourite is priced in excess of 1.608/13 tomorrow, so there looks like being a pretty one-sided day in prospect. The match which the market is finding it toughest to split two players is Lloyd Harris versus Marton Fucsovics, with Harris the 1.9620/21 favourite, and Fucsovics priced up at just over even money.
Both players won in five sets on Monday, with Fucsovics labouring to his as a heavy favourite and Harris picking up an excellent underdog win over 17th seed Lorenzo Musetti, backing up wins in Nonthaburi Challenger warm-up events - albeit against pretty limited opposition. These tournaments were Harris' first outings since last year's French Open, so he'll be pleased to get wins under his belt, but one question mark is how much he's got left in the tank.
Also against a limited field, Fucsovics has a Challenger final to his name this season, winning in Bendigo in the first week of the season, and his return game, in my view, gives him a slight edge over the South African.
It's certainly not a strong lean though, but I don't see any reason why Harris should be favourite here.
Van de Zandschulp favourite over countryman Griekspoor
There's also a competitive-looking clash between the Dutch duo, Tallon Griekspoor and Botic van de Zandschulp. It's the 32nd seed, van de Zandschulp, who is the 1.834/5 slight favourite, a fair bit bigger than the 1.501/2 price that he started in their last meeting, on hard court at Winston Salem at the end of August.
Again, it's a big return edge that dictates my thoughts here, with van de Zandschulp winning 5% more return points on hard courts in the last year, and he looks accurately priced here, although his countryman Griekspoor is a man in form, following his win in the Pune 250 several weeks ago.
Finally, I also think that Corentin Moutet has a pretty decent chance as a slight underdog for his clash with Francisco Cerundolo. Moutet has better numbers on hard court in the last year, while Cerundolo was an injury doubt coming into this event having pulled out of the Auckland warm-up event.
A far from dominant first set win for Cerundolo over clay-courter Guido Pella doesn't mean a great deal, although Moutet was on court for over four hours in his win over Yibing Wu. Another competitive match lasting four hours could again be in prospect.