* All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.
3AM: Osaka v Williams – Williams 2-0 set betting
The true telling point in Serena Williams’s game is her fitness, she’s a different breed when she’s physically close to 100 per cent and in this year’s Aussie Open she looks just that. She overcame a long three-setter in her fourth-round match against the form player in Aryna Sabalenka, and in her last match she dispatched the Romanian Simona Halep in straight sets.
There were heavy question marks surrounding Naomi Osaka’s form coming into the first slam of the year but boy has she delivered, she has cruised into the semi-finals in all her matches bar the fourth round against Garbiñe Muguruza where she snatched victory from the jaws of defeat to win 7-5 in the final set.
Serena is the underdog against Osaka here, but I feel that if she is to win she will blow her off the court rather than have a long and arduous battle of wills. I just see it being an easy one if she were to get to this year’s final, but I like the value of the 2-0 victory
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8.30AM: Djokovic v Karatsev – Karatsev set 1 winner
You couldn’t have picked a number high enough if you were going to place an outright bet on Aslan Karatsev before the start of this year’s Aussie Open with some bookmakers not even offering him, but here we are with the qualifier having made it all the way through to the semi-final in what is his first-ever grand slam at the age of 27.
He has beaten an array of top players, pulling of multiple comebacks along the way. It has been far from plain sailing thus far for Novak Djokovic. He reached double-digit prices for the outright betting when pulling a stomach muscle in his third round, five-set marathon match against the young big-serving American Taylor Fritz.
Since then he’s been at his best, overcoming both huge-serving Milos Raonic and Alex Zverev in four sets, and all question marks around his injury were answered when he actually out-aced Zverev in his quarter-final. In Djokovic’s post-match interview he gave away that it takes him quite some time to warm up whatever is left of his injury, and in doing so has given us a bit of an angle here. Given Djokovic’s potential for a slow start, I think Karatsev to win the first set is worth a dabble.
Tennis tips summary:
Osaka v Williams – Williams 2-0 set betting
Djokovic v Karatsev – Karatsev set 1 winner
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