Australian Open Women's Day 8 Tips: Bencic potential underdog value for Sabalenka clash

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Belinda Bencic is today's pick...

Fourth round action at the Australian Open continues on Monday, and after big shocks on day seven, Dan Weston returns to preview the day ahead...

  • Rybakina eliminates Swiatek

  • Sabalenka could be tested by Bencic

  • Garcia's serve tough to break


Świątek falls at the hands of Rybakina

The outright market has been turned on its head following the overnight matches, with tournament favourite and world number one Iga Swiatek dumped out by Elena Rybakina, and Cori Gauff, who was similarly priced to Swiatek pre-match against Jelena Ostapenko, also losing in straight sets.

This victory for Rybakina has propelled her to tournament favourite, priced up at 4.77/2 at the time of writing, with Jessica Pegula 4.84/1 after her win over Barbora Krejcikova. Aryna Sabalenka is marginally behind as third favourite, trading at 5.95/1 currently. The tournament is now really wide open.

Bencic and Sabelenka meet with one unbeaten record to go

No doubt the outright market will change rapidly again after Monday's remaining fourth round matches, which get underway from midnight UK time with Aryna Sabalenka facing Belinda Bencic.

Sabalenka is a 1.728/11 favourite for this match, having won all seven of her main tour matches in straight sets this season so far, albeit against opposition ranked no higher than 20 in the world. However, all she can do is beat the players in front of her, and she's done that with ease so far in 2023.

Following a title in Adelaide, Bencic is also unbeaten this season in main tour events, and has beaten two top 10 opponents, so she's also playing at a high level at the start of this season.

On hard court in the last 12 months, she does possess better serve numbers, and a higher points won percentage as well, so Bencic's status as an underdog certainly looks worthy of challenge.

This is also a dynamic shown when looking at more recent six month data across all surfaces, and numbers this year as well, so it's difficult to see why these players aren't priced much closer to even money. Bencic looks some value at 2.3811/8.

Garcia's serve should get it done

Should she win on Monday, Caroline Garcia has a decent chance of moving to tournament favourite, and she looks well-placed to do so given that she is a 1.364/11 favourite against Magda Linette.

The WTA Finals winner has shown a huge improvement in the last six months, and her serve in particular should give her the edge over the Pole - Garcia has held serve almost 85% of the time during this time period. These are truly exceptional numbers on the WTA Tour, and that consistency is going to be very difficult to beat.

Vekic a short-priced favourite for Fruhvirtova clash

Moving through the card, I'm a little surprised that Donna Vekic is so favoured by the market at 1.4640/85 against the 17-year-old Czech, Linda Fruhvirtová. Having won in Chennai in September, Fruhvirtova looks to be an excellent prospect, backed up by a three-set underdog win over Marketa Vondrousova on Saturday as well.

While it's great to see Vekic finally pick up some results to start to justify her potential which she showed at a similar age to Fruhvirtova, I'm not sure that there should be the same market pricing to that Vondrousova match.

In my view, Vondrousova looks to be a level above Vekic on the surface, and I'd have this match much closer to even money assuming Fruhvirtova is full fit - she did have a medical time out for a groin injury in the final set in that round three clash.

Finally, Karolina Pliskova is a solid favourite at 1.548/15 for her clash with the Chinese veteran Shuai Zhang. The duo haven't met since March 2018 but Pliskova has won all seven of their career matches to date.

Those matches have been very serve-oriented, with Zhang really struggling to create much of an impression on the Pliskova serve, and tomorrow's match certainly has the potential to have a similar dynamic.

Recommended bets

Back Belinda Bencic to beat Aryna Sabalenka @ 2.3811/8

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