Australian Open Women's Day Six Tips: Tauson to continue winning run

Anisimova defeats Osaka to improve Barty's chances

We kept our strong run going in Melbourne with Amanda Anisimova not just covering the game handicap but defeating Naomi Osaka in a dramatic third-set tiebreak. This ruined the chances of a Barty v Osaka round four match, but Anisimova's level this season shows she could quite potentially give Barty a tricky encounter.

Osaka's exit has improved Barty's chances of lifting the trophy, with the Australian now into 2.789/5 on the Exchange in the outright market, well clear of the field. Our outright pick, Iga Swiatek, is now into third favourite and is a pretty strong favourite to continue her run in the tournament against Darya Kasatkina tomorrow.

Vondrousova justified favourite over Sabalenka

Market Vondrousova against Aryna Sabalenka looks one of the matches of the day, and initially when I looked at the market pricing, I was surprised Vondrousova was priced at 1.705/7, think the price was pretty short. However, she does actually have a slight edge on 12 month hard court data, and while a price of around 1.804/5 looks about right to me, it's not much of a difference with the model pricing.

Cornet with return edge over Zidansek

This was also the case with Alize Cornet for her match with Tamara Zidansek. I first looked at Cornet priced at 1.804/5 and thought that could be some value but their hard court data isn't absurdly different over the last year. Cornet is quite a bit better on return, with Zidansek having an edge on serve. It will be fascinating to see how Cornet backs up her win over third seed Garbine Muguruza, and could face Simona Halep with a victory here in the fourth round.

Tauson can continue to realise potential

However, the match I want to focus on from a pre-match perspective is Clara Tauson versus Danielle Collins. Tauson was our hero on Thursday with a superb victory over Anett Kontaveit, backing up my previous assertions that she's the highest potential player on tour who hasn't really made a breakthrough into the top 20 yet.

The market is finding it tough to choose between Tauson and Collins with regards to favourite status, with Tauson having a very slight edge at 1.9310/11. She was favourite in their French Open match in September 2020, and has improved subsequently.

Collins, though, is also a very strong hard courter (combined service/return points won on the surface in the last 12 months of over 104%), but Tauson's number are even better and I think she should be priced around the 1.758/11 mark.

It's not a huge edge, but to me it looks like the best spot on Saturday in the women's event.

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