Australian Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 19 January 2011 /

A shocking capitulation left Sean cursing yesterday's selection but our man dusts himself down and begins another bid for an odds-against winner. And there's plenty of value around in the women's draw too.

A great start to the Australian Open from a betting perspective was curtailed in the most stunning fashion in the early hours of Wednesday when Janko Tipsarevic somehow managed to blow three match points for a comfortable 3-1 win over Fernando Verdasco.

The Serb owes us big time for that capitulation and hopefully some of you were wise enough to protect your investments when Tipsy became a very short price with victory just a shot away.

Oh well, you can't win 'em all and I'm going to go after another odds-against winner today.

I picked young Aussie Bernard Tomic as one of my first round upsets earlier this week. He duly obliged by hammering Jeremy Chardy in straight sets and I'm going to stick with him in the second round.

On another day that features plenty of sub [1.1] shots in the men's draw - and with the possible exception of Soderling, they all look very solid - this clash is one of the few that the layers see as almost even, with Tomic available to back at [2.25]

Lopez must be a nightmare for Francisco Clavet and his team to coach. Brilliant one day and awful the next, the Spanish leftie it's fair to say has disappointing in his career overall and especially in Slams.

He has been past the fourth round of a Slam just twice in 36 attempts
- both were on grass at Wimbledon - and to prove his unreliability, he's lost to players ranked outside the world's top 140 three times in his last six Slams.

Lopez has never done well in Melbourne either - his best effort is the third round - and Tomic, with the vociferous home crowd behind him, can add to Lopez's record of being beaten by far lower ranked players.

The [2.25] about a Tomic win looks the call in this one, as his efforts at Melbourne Park so far in his young career have been much better than elsewhere and this is a great chance to get to the third round, as he almost did last year when narrowly losing to Marin Cilic in five.

On the women's side, there looks to be plenty of value around and it's hard to narrow it down to one match, but the safest bet for accumulation of funds looks to be Petra Kvitova to beat Anna Chakvetadze at around [1.5].

This appears to be a match between two players heading in different directions on the WTA Tour, with Kvitova on the up and Anna on the way down and it should pay to cash in.

The 20-year-old Czech player is in fine form so far in 2011, having won impressively in Brisbane, beating the likes of Petrova, Petkovic, Pavlyuchenkova and Cibulkova on the way to the title.

The Russian former world number six meanwhile has only won two matches in the same event once since before the US Open and lost in the first round at both Brisbane and Hobart, so the form points convincingly towards a Kvitova win in their first ever meeting.

In Brisbane, Chakvetadze lost 6-2, 6-2 to the left handed world number 96, Ksenia Pervak, who Kvitova also beat on her way to the title and I doubt that the Russian will fancy playing a classier leftie so soon.

Recommended bets:
Back Tomic to beat Lopez at [2.25]
Back Kvitova to beat Chakvetadze at [1.5]

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