After two winners from two bets on Sunday, Andy Schooler previews Monday’s last-16 matches at the Australian Open.
Tennis betting tips: Australian Open matches
1.5pts Daria Kasatkina to serve the most double faults v Emma Navarro at 11/10 (bet365)
1pt Alex Michelsen (+5.5) to beat Alex de Minaur on the game handicap at 5/6 (General)
Alex Michelsen v Alex de Minaur
I’m not sure 2/7 De Minaur will have things all his own way here and so a play on the handicap is certainly worth considering,
The home hope has moved pretty comfortably through the draw, it has to be said, although he did lose a set to Francisco Cerundolo on Saturday.
This should be a different sort of test with Michelsen a more aggressive player.
De Minaur is very consistent from the baseline so opponents need to push him, get him on the run and off balance in a bid to draw errors.
Michelsen is capable of that and arrives at the last-16 stage full of confidence following wins over seeds Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov.
The head-to-head is somewhat strange – it stands at 1-1 but each win has been a blow-out, De Minaur winning only five games on the hardcourts of Los Cabos last season before taking his revenge when losing just three games on the Roland Garros clay.
Focusing on former will give Michelsen plenty of hope – Los Cabos plays fairly slow which you would expect to be in favour of the Aussie.
For the bet, I’d prefer this match to be taking place in the speedy daytime conditions but I’m still going to side with Michelsen to cover a 5.5-game handicap, albeit to small stakes.
Emma Navarro v Daria Kasatkina
In what has basically been chalked up as a 50-50 match, by natural inclination was the back the more aggressive Navarro.
Many times over the years I’ve seen Kasatkina impress in the early rounds only to then come up against extra power and crumble. Her weak second serve often gets the treatment off such players.
However, I was rather put off by the fact that Navarro herself has struggled on her second deal so far in Melbourne. She’s managed to successfully navigate a trio of three-set matches – continuing her highly-impressive final-set record – but has won only 43% of her second-serve points.
With only 63% won behind her first serve too, she’s holding serve only 60% of the time. In contrast, Kasatkina’s figure is up at a very impressive 88% - she’s been broken only three times in three rounds so far.
Still, I’d expect plenty of service breaks in this one – the line is set at 8.5 – but it’s another of the serve-related markets that catches the eye here.
Kasatkina is odds-against in the ‘most double faults’ betting and that just looks wrong to me.
Whichever way you look at it, the averages show she serves more double faults than Navarro.
In 2024, Kasatkina served 0.47 per game to Navarro’s 0.2 – a huge difference.
So far in 2025 (admittedly a small sample), it’s 0.35 v 0.26 and at this tournament it’s 0.38 v 0.26.
Now, I know I’ve traditionally placed a lot of weight on head-to-head match-ups when picking in this market in the past but we’ve got no previous meetings to work with here.
However, as already suggested, I believe Kasatkina’s second serve is going to come under some serious scrutiny here and that could well lead to errors, be it seeking more power or going for the lines that bit more.
Back her at 11/10 to serve the most double faults.
Posted at 1245 GMT on 19/01/25
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