Wednesday's Tennis Jan 8th 2014

Tuesday was a mediocre day at best with 2 wins and two smaller losses but in bad matches which, in hindsight, I should have avoided. Here are my thoughts on Wednesday's tennis:

ATP Apia Sydney International:

I was impressed with the scoreline and apparent ease at which Tomic defeated Granollers in round one. Looking good for the outright tip after round one in what I hope will be a successful title defence. Even better was the fact that Blaz Kavcic is his second round opponent and not Jarrko Nieminen who has done very well in Sydney in recent years. I saw some people tipping up Nieminen outright this week and I had to question that. Even though he has a good record here, he's not the same player as he was before while someone like Tomic has a lot to prove and is still very much on an upward curve. Anyway, some matches which appeal to me here Wednesday are Matosevic @ 10/11 to beat Seppi. Matosevic had a good win here over Florian Mayer yesterday and the fact the home crowd will be with him give me reason to believe he might just get the better of Seppi who looks to be a little behind where I'd expect him to be. Two other bets I like are Dolgopolov to beat Janowicz @ 1.9 on Betfair and I think a small stakes bet on Mahut to beat DelPo at 7.0 on Betfair could be a shrewd bit of business. And I still think Tomic is excellent outright value @ 8/1 general

ATP Heineken Open Auckland:

Benoit Paire is a fantastic price @ 7/10 to beat Bautista-Agut in New Zealand. He's a much better player and especially so on hardcourt and I would be much shorter here on Paire, like 4/9 ish. Lukas Lacko is a lovely price to beat Isner at 2/1. Isner always struggles to return and Lacko is a fantastic server who has come through qualifying here with ease. Isner is on his way back from an ankle injury and is still not right so don't expect 2/1 to last on Lacko. Again, I still think 8/1 here represents great value on Phillip Kohlschreiber

WTA:

I think Madison Keys is a nice bet @ 11/10 to beat Mattek-Sands, who is a player I don't like too much! Keys has much more to her game, is on the way up in women's tennis and has a winning record against her war-painted opponent. I'm pretty confident Radwanska wanted to get an early plane to Melbourne today so Sands is not playing as well as people think. One more bet I like is 5/1 outright for Vesnina to win Hobart outright.

Until tomorrow...