ATP Tennis Aussie Open Final Feb 20

It’s finals time, baby.

Most importantly, it’s the finals (most) people wanted when the draw came out. NextGen vs Big Three. Hottest guy on tour vs Best player on tour. Guy looking for his first Slam vs Guy looking for his NINTH at just this venue alone.

Lots of stuff here.

I’m sitting on a Medvedev ticket from pre-tournament (and I’m desperate for the Big Three to relent) so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

These two fellas might be the two best guys on tour (surface dependent) at the moment. Medvedev made the semis at the US Open, then put in some light work on clay (0-2) before closing out 2020 with two straight titles in Paris and London. He started 2021 in the same form, leading Russia to the ATP Cup and now being in the Aussie Open final. He is on a, much talked about, 20 match win streak that has included scalps over 16 players in the top 50 (and one of the four who wasn’t in the top 50 was Kevin Anderson on the injury recovery road) and 12 players in the top ten. That’s pretty incredible - just taking out guys like Raonic, ADM, Nadal, Berrettini, Tsitsipas, Rublev, Djokovic and Zverev (three times!). That’s right, Nadal and Djokovic are on that list. And Djokovic isn’t even amoung the people Medvedev has dropped a set to lately. He’s only dropped seven sets on this run, two to Krajinovic last week, one to Zverev at the ATP Cup, and then four in 2020 (De Minaur, Zverev, Nadal, Thiem). His 12 straight wins against players in the top ten is bordering on record breaking:

In fact, Medvedev shouldn’t be worried by Djokovic at all. That win over Novak last fall is not indicative of anyting other than a growing trend, a shift in the power. Medvedev and Djokovic have played seven times and Novak only leads 4-3. More importantly, Medvedev is 3-1 in the last four meetings. And frankly, other than their only meeting on grass (it was only Medvedev’s 14th ATP grass matche ever) he has always troubled Djokovic :

The play this week should only embolden Medvedev. I’ve pointed out each round how each player is doing versus their career norms to see if they are in for any positive or negetive regression and I think it still lines up in Medvedev’s favour. I mean it is still pretty subjective because you have to factor in the level of the competition. Novak is continuing to largely match his career norms while outperforming in the serve department (he is acing people WAY more than normal and double faulting WAY less). Meds is over-performing greatly both when it comes to holding serve and breaking serve. He is truly peaking.

I keep a, highly unsophisticated, running tab for each player in the draw beyond rd two

What you could surmise from this is regression for Medvedev. Coming hard. But, what if this IS the new normal for him? Look at his hold/break stats - in 2018 and 2019 he was sitting at an already pretty elite 115% on hard courts. After the ATP Cup in 2021 he was sitting at 120% and now when you add in the Aussie matches he is up to 127%. Incredible. And he isn’t doing it against chumps. Tsitsipas and Rublev are no joke given their current form.
Djokovic showed against Karatsev that even though he is acing people more often, double faulting less than normal, and holding serve 3% above his career average, he is STILL suspetible to being broken. Karatsev was breaking serve 42% of the time this tournament, heading into that match. He broke Djokovic twice and that match was a giant step beyond anything he has competed in before. Meds is breaking serve 38% of the time this week and he’s beaten Djokovic three times in the last two years.
I think the uber-serving from Djokovic is his attempt to cover up some other failings that have started to creep into his game. He is 8-0 so far far in 2021 but it hasn’t been without it’s struggles and he only closed 2020 4-3 after the French Open. He lost to Medvedev, of course, and Thiem and… Lorenzo Sonego? He hasn’t won a title since Rome when he was gifted DSS in the final and so far this year he has dropped sets to Zverev, Tiafoe, Fritz, Raonic and Zverev. His only ‘clean’ matches have been against Chardy and Karatsev, two guys well outside the top 50.
It’s a one sided look at things, to be sure. But, I mean, that’s why I placed the futures bet (I had outrights on Meds at both Paris and London last year too, which was even more bold when you think about his form immediately after the US Open).
I actually show line value on Djokovic using historical stats - I make this line about -150/150. But, I’m not going to bet it. Meds is on the rise.
Now the total. It’s set at 40.5 or 41 depending on the book. That means both guys have to win a set. Djokovic has lost 35 matches in the fourth round and beyond at Slams (easy to remove the early years when he was dropping first and second round matches). In those 35 losses, 14 times (40%) he has failed to win a set. When he gets frustrated he either retires/hits someone in the throat (6 times) or goes away quietly. Even if both guys get a set, with the amount they both break serve, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a 64,46,63,64 kind of scoreline (only two sets they’ve ever played have gone beyond 10 games).
I like the under and maybe a dart on the Medvedev 3-0 and 3-1 set scores.

So, some “fun bets”:
Djokovic/Medvedev u41, -105, Pinny
Medvdev 3-0, +400, BOL
Medvedev 3-1, +400, Bet365