AO 2021
or something like it…
This year’s AO is ever so different than any others AO, in my opinion. As an ITF expert, I can tell you that betting on ATP/WTA is one of the hardest challenges and to excel within it in the long run, with 12-15% avg yield (or better), it’s like climbing Mount Everest, just to make another life example. It’s not impossible, but fuck me, if you do it, it’s quite the accomplishment. I tried many times and most of the times I didn’t succeed, so I stayed at ITF where I’m best. Except every year… I come lurking back… for the best grand slam of the year… AO
In WTA (that’s true to ITF women’s as well), the “logical” results rarely happen and you need many angles to analyze a match and even then, your best pick loses 26 26 and you are sitting in a dark room for 3 hours not knowing what the fuck just happened. So that’s just an everyday “dish’ in women’s tennis betting, really. Spice that with the level of WTA players and you have yourself a really spicy jambalaya. You never know what you gonna find in it. You like it a lot, but there is a good chance, you gonna have some cramps in the evening. That’s WTA betting for me. It’s a challenge, to say at least!
I think with this year’s AO, we have some extra angles to work with and honestly believe there is some money to be made because of these unfortunate events that has been happening over the past year…. (insert annoyingly stupid covid joke here)
In a GS I usually like to bet only the first 2-3 rounds max, because after that the value becomes thinner and the variance factor bigger that can make your head spin. If I want that, I go to six flags and sit in a rollercoaster and not bet! But that’s just me. Oh wait….. even Six Flags is fucking closed now, damn virus… 😊
The approach for me will be this year’s AO will be similar to last AO’s, we need to create a big enough sample size, so that we can have both sides of the variance. In other words, you have to be really lucky to make good profit with only a couple of bets from these 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounds matchups (total of 64+32+16 = 112 matches). Therefore, my approach will be to lower my stakes and try to “flat bet” every angle that I think it’s worth betting.
Bet responsibly and I hope you like my previews. I’m not responsible for anyone’s betting behavior.
Good Luck and God Bless AO is BACK!!!
Babos – Bonaventure
For me here, the ‘new’ Babos Timi is playing, with the right mindset, with her ex-coach from before, they have been able to create a better understanding of her expectations. As from my past in the Hungarian tennis world and knowing some background bc of that I believe Timi’s big problem was always that she has been achieving all the heights in doubles and really struggling (compared to her qualities) as a singles player, mentally most of the time. In my view she needed or needs to accept that it’s that much tougher or let’s say a totally different thing, to make it to similar heights in singles as in doubles. Once she lowers her expectations and only focuses on each point positively with the right mindset, her sheer power and her talent to this game will prevail, because honestly it’s all in her head now. Her physique looked pretty good. I liked the way she played especially against Schmiedlova, in the Q final of AO, she dominated the whole match and even though she let the Slovakian back for the 2nd set, she was able to reset and dominate again. It was quite refreshing to see for me. Tig is also a nice victory in Australia last week and Garcia was an alright performance. The other reason for me to bet on this match is the underperformance of Bonaventure in the qualies, beating Kostic means nothing to me and beating Lottner who hasn’t played almost for a year also not so much. Losing in the Q final against a tough scraper Savynik so she only got into the MD as a lucky loser. The level of tennis just wasn’t the same as in the Babos-Schmiedlova match. Honestly to me a very similar player like Schmiedlova, all around, only Bona is lefty, can do a lot of things with the ball but she should be overpowered by Babos, here, who I hope can solve this puzzle of difficult 1st round victory with enough self-confidence and the right mindset! Big news yesterday, that Babos is now only playing singles, so her focus could be solely on this. Other issue could be how Mladenovic told her this late that she wants to pull out from doubles and only focus on singles, because of a leg injury… Yea, right…. because the leg injury won’t affect her in singles… tough to say where these news will take the head of Babos, but I believe in the new direction now.
Odds been dropping from 1,68, now to 1,5 even for Babos, so the -2,5 or -3,5 HC is not out of the question for me either.
Juvan – Konta
I have a feeling that this might be a good spot for Juvan to make this match very interesting. Boasts an immense talent and a really professional attitude, a winner’s attitude so to say, Juvan has been playing some pretty good tennis. Even in RG she was able to win against proven great players like Kerber, and lately I like what I see. Didn’t drop a set in the qualies in 3 matches, which is impressive. She has a natural talent, so maybe the 14 day quarantine was not as worse for her as for some players who needs to practice more to be consistent. This is a common sense as an ex player, for example players like Stosur, Riske, Konta hard hitting players that play with a bigger chance of mistakes bc of the speed they are playing with, need more practice time to get the consistency they need for their game. So naturally a Kasatkina, Juvan type of player needs maybe a little less, bc of their natural feel for the ball and the crafty game they play.
I like Juvan’s self-confidence, I like her form and I like the talent she brings to the table. Konta is lacking some match play, but from what I saw the match against Begu, it was a really good, hard-fought match, with good quality. She did lose from match point though. I reckon that this has not been the best fer her confidence, while Juvan beat Y. Wang, a good win for her and took a set of the “Polak of 2020” Swiatek. I think that translates into even more confidence. The price has seen a mini rise towards Juvan, which is fortunate I think.
I think Juvan takes a set here or causes even more problems for Konta. Trading at 1,72-1,66 I think the *win a set* option represents good enough value. Smaller bet on the match is possible, too.
Van Uytvanck – Burel
Since the re-start in September, Van Uytvanck’s form has not been great, to say at least. 8 matches and 6 defeats and only once convincing victory over Kuzmova, who has been having some serious decline lately. Then in RG she retired bc of blood pressure issue. Next thing I know she is here, looking okay really, but played a very disoriented Hsieh, played well and won easily. You could see some problems next round where the same thing happened to her, what earlier to Hsieh. Total domination by Muguruza, which is OK, bc I think when Mugu is on, most women can be swept away, but what I didn’t like were just too many unforced errors. This is what strikes me the most lately (last years also) that her inconsistency is an issue, now with this Covid break, this is even more understandable.
Burel on the other hand proved already she is there mentally and she can do it on the big stage, winning 2 rounds in RG main draw beating Juvan, these are great accomplishments, especially to her age. Since then, the AO Q was a one-way traffic for Burel and other than the lost set to Kalinskaya it was pretty convincing. Pre-AO she had one good set vs Giorgi, where she was close, but the Italian closed the match pretty quick after that. It will be a question how she has been handling the 14 day quarantine in Melbourne, not so much info about that. We are looking at the 2018 AO junior finalist in Burel, so Melbourne has been nice to her, who in my opinion will make it difficult for Van Uytvanck. I’m a big fan of the Belgian player for a long time, when I witnessed her steps from ITF to WTA and made quite a good sum on her talent, but I think this could be a tough spot for here.
Burel to win a set is @1,5 at most shops, this is where I will be putting my money on. Value at those odds, one would ask? Well, its tough to say “value for a set @1,5”, but I would say at the current circumstances, it is. Or split-bet btw match winner and set winner is also a smart choice!
Gracheva – Blinkova
Blinkova is a usually a stellar player, but she has been trying to find her confidence for some time. After an injury in Ostrava in October, she has played two matches, the last 3 and a half months. Loss to Cirstea, good match actually compared to the 2-6 1-6 result and the one this week in the Grampians Open, one better to forget also, 1-6 1-6 to Jabeur. She is a super hard-working girl, has some pretty big shadow routine like Bartoli used to do on the court. Important, that she has not got much feeling for the ball and she is really the kind of player that needs a lot of practice to get to her level. Now she has been in the strict quarantine group for 14 days, room service only (actually not funny), I think the match against Jabeur shows that this was an issue for her and I think she might not be 100% match ready for this.
Gracheva has been in the normal quarantine group so that means she had to stay only 48 hrs in full lockdown and from there on she could practice 5hrs each day and participate in the earlier tournament. She beat a good Cabrera and I think, even though this win doesn’t mean that much, she can find the rhythm much easier than her opponent. Since the restart she had a very successful US Open, with 2 wins in MD and that proves she can hang in there with the top players. Loss to Svitolina 67 46 in the French Open shows the same for me and although she hasn’t showed any GREAT results lately, she has shown decent enough form for me to make a similar approach as I did to Burel.
With the hard lockdown behind Blinkova and her 5 games won in 2 matches in the last 3 and a half months. against Gracheva who had better circumstances to get ready for this AO (unfair maybe, unlucky definitely), she shouldn’t be favorite here in my opinion.
I think to split bet (eg:75%-25% set winner match winner) is a decent choice on Gracheva, Anywhere between 1,44-1,5 for the set and 2,1-2,2 for the match represents us small value here.
Leans
I’m working on some other matchups now. I really like the way Collins and Alexandrova is shaping up. Obviously, the price is too low, even for Collins. People pay too much attention to the pre-AO tournaments and I think players are just happy to leave the hotel and get out. Here, I might add, that I thank all the Victorians and the organizers to make this event possible. Truly remarkable and the world needs events like this again. Maybe a hotel room with actual windows that can be opened for fresh air would have been a great idea, but I know 0 about any hotel laws in Australia about this, so never mind.
I think Ann Li is definitely too low and Zhang Shuai with her huge GS experience can cause troubles there. Li is performing amazing on this pre-tournament, but really need to see which player is taking it seriously for the whole duration of the match, because the AO main draw is knocking on the door. Last AO Zhang went into 3rd round, 2020 RG event into 4th round, so this one is really difficult… I will watch Brady-Li match to maybe see what can be a good bet if any. But a definite overreaction of Li as a great young talent here.
Bencic might have a tricky first round if Davis has a good day. Bencic seemed to me mentally really challenged with the hard quarantine. I’m aa big Bencic fan, and I understand it that her mental strength has been one of the reasons she couldn’t permanently move into the top 10, Its definitely not her technical nor her physical side that lacks huge improvements. Because this hard quarantine might have been toughest on the mind really, I probably will stay away and cheer her on, form the sidelines.
Other match that strikes me a little odd is Krejcikova who pretty much had a full season since the restart and maybe even too many matches (41 singles and 15 doubles matches), good results as well, as she started to build herself up with lower national tournaments and then a 4th round at the French Open, semi-final in Linz and you can see that even here, she already is looking to play her 7th match tomorrow in the doubles final in Gippsland… All this match routine compared to Saisai who had zero matches, since march, well one here a 3 set loss to Begu. Odd for sure. Easy logic would say Krejcikova most probably win this, but its never this easy…. I don’t really like the overplayed fatigue angle on a player that is trying to do really well in singles and doubles as well, its rarely working out for both at the same time. Now that Babos/Mladenovic are out, Krejci/Sini becomes the fav for the doubles draw, therefore, Im skipping this slight favorite here.
Last, but not least Pegula is showing some unbelievable tennis and depending on Azarenka’s injury, this could be a difficult round for Vika, if she won’t be 100%. There are a bunch of other players and matchups I could talk about but these are the ones that struck me the most.
I hope this helped a little for your betting adventure in the AO 2021 jungle. Do your own research, make a safe staking plan and only play with money you can afford to lose. When a loss hurts too much, you are doing something wrong. AO is too much fun, even without betting on it. Seriously.
Yours,
Shamba