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Swiatek an outstanding price following draw
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Big names to go well in various quarters
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Samsanov's looks worth chancing at big odds
Perplexed by Swiatek's drift in price
In our pre-draw assessment of the contenders, I described tournament favourite Iga Swiatek leading the market as: "To be blunt, Swiatek's status as the outright market favourite is pretty obvious.
"She leads the tour on combined service/return points won on hard court in the last 12 months by some distance, and is winning over 50% of return points - a truly incredible achievement.
"The pressure Swiatek puts on her opponents serve is quite something, and I feel that she would seriously have to drop in level to be challenged by many over the next few weeks in Melbourne."
Having only written this a few days ago, the same view obviously holds, yet we've seen an increase in Swiatek's market price from 3.3512/5 at the time of writing the pre-draw assessment of contenders, to a current 3.711/4 following today's draw.
I'm a little perplexed as to why this is the case. She has picked up Bianca Andreescu as a round three opponent, but there's little evidence that the Canadian is close to anywhere near her previous peak levels (and the outright market agrees, pricing her up at 130.0129/1).
Swiatek potentially does need to get past Cori Gauff in the quarter finals but she beat Gauff 6-3 6-0 in the WTA Finals, and her stats are in a completely different league to Gauff's right now, so again, I don't envisage that being a gigantic hurdle to overcome.
In fact, Swiatek has a statistically bigger ability differential to the women's contenders than Novak Djokovic has in the men's event, yet Djokovic is even money and Swiatek is almost double the price.
I think that Swiatek is an outstanding price at just shy of 11/4 here, even considering some mixed form in exhibition warm-up events (which Djokovic also had).
Pegula, Keys and Garcia names to watch in various quarters
Moving through the draw, the top half of quarter two looks stacked with Jessica Pegula, Amanda Anisimova, Barbora Krejcikova and Petra Kvitova all among the 16 players in that segment of the draw, which makes it a little surprising that Pegula's status as third favourite has firmed up a little in the outright market, currently trading at 13.525/2.
In quarter two, I wouldn't be surprised to see Madison Keys make week two as well. The American has had a decent start to 2023 in the United Cup, albeit against pretty weak opposition, but looks to be in the better part of quarter two. A strong start could see her 48.047/1 markedly shorten.
Caroline Garcia 14.013/1 looks well-set to get through quarter three, which is why I find her trading places with Pegula in the outrights fairly strange.
If Garcia can play to the level she found in the second half of 2023, there isn't much to worry her from her quarter. Anett Kontaveit and Karolina Pliskova are among the players looking to prove me wrong.
Samsonova's price looks out of line
Finally, quarter four looks very open indeed with Ons Jabeur and Aryna Sabalenka bookending the bracket.
I've already written why I'm unsold on the duo in the pre-draw preview, particularly given now that Sabalenka has further shortened into 8.515/2, and this gives the opportunity for the rapidly improving Ludmilla Samsonova to get revenge for the narrow loss in Adelaide last week.
Samsonova was pre-match favourite against Sabalenka for that match, so her price being over five times as big for this tournament looks very out of line, and she looks the best option of the long-shot players at 46.045/1.