ATP Australian Open 2021 Preview
Can the sports calendar get any stranger? Today the Australian Open will kick off DURING the Super Bowl. How’s that for once in a lifetime!
The 2021 version of the Happy Slam has been pushed back three weeks from it’s usual spot on the calendar to allow for player quarantines in the light of humanities on-going struggle with COVID-19. And it would appear as of the weekend, all measures were successful and things are going to kick off on schedule with no late withdrawls. Impressive feat by the Aussies.
The pushback in the calendar, and the subsequent re-vamped lead-up to the tournament, will have some affect on the events and they should briefly be expounded upon here. Firstly is the weather. Lots gets made about the heat in Melbourne during this two week period (you can only use “fortnight” when talking about Wimbledon, right?) and rightly so. There can be extreme variations from a ‘low’ of 20 degrees Celcius to highs of 38 and 39. This has caused cramping, exhaustion and plenty of withdrawls in previous years. In 2021, if the Aussie Open had been held in it’s usual spot from January 18 to January 31 that temperature range is exactly what the players would have experienced. As it stands now, it looks like the floor is about the same, 19-20 degrees. But, the ceiling on the tempertaure should be around 30-31 degrees according to forecasts. That should mean less fatigue and less ‘give-up’ in later sets. The second thing that may be affected by the pushback and the unique lead up is the players prep. There has always been a plethora of pre-Aussie Open schedule choices, from doing nothing, to playing high profile exhibitions in Hobart, to playing in some or all of the lead up ATP 250’s. This year just about everyone got involved in competitive matches with the advent of the ATP Cup, which has steered top level players away from exhibitions and into Davis Cup style team events. With the very unique 2021 calendar all of the lead up events took place in the same spot and same venue, so the playing field should be pretty level. In fact, only six players failed to register a non-exhibition match in the last week - Nadal, Pospisil, Krajinovic, Ivashka, Tomic and Dzumhur. Now, Tomic and Dzumhur played qualies in Dubai two weeks ago, so they at least have some semblance of competitive tennis under their belts. The other four haven’t been in a real match yet, which may be concerning.
The last tidbit of note to consider would be the court speed. Much is made of court speeds, everywhere and all the time. The best advice is to ignore the players and try to focus on results because everyone has a different opinion and that could be due to their playing style or simply the specific court they played on (with a venue housing like 20 different courts, not every court is going to play the same). That being said, it is generally agreed that the Aussie Open used to be one of the faster surfaces on the ATP circuit and that 2020 was a big departure from that. The big beneficiary of the slower cours in 2020 was Dominic Thiem who made the finals on courts almost perfectly suited to him (see his success at the normally slower US Open venue, which led certain people to predict he would break through and win his first slam there, happy face emoji). Usually, with the disparity in class between top end and lower seeded players you would see a slight lean to the under in terms of the totals in these lead up matches (Murray Road ranged from #18 in the world to #324, Great Ocean ranged from #14 to #1004, and the ATP Cup had the #1 player in the world and the #462 player in the world). However, the over actually came in at 53% across a 130 match sample. That’s about a 6% swing from my data. Maybe the courts aren’t as fast as they were in the 2010-2019 period but they certainly seem faster than the 2020 edition.
With all that preamble out of the way, let’s look at the field:
First Quarter
The first quarter is headlined, as usual by Novak Djokovic. He is the currently sitting at +130 to win outright and -225 to win his quarter. I can’t really argue with either of those prices given that he is the best player in the world by some margin and he has all but plainly said he has ‘most slams’ as a target. Strictly mathematically speaking these prices do seem a little low given he drew a fairly tough quarter, relatively speaking (honestly, could any path be considered “tough” for Novak?). He has a pretty probable path of Chardy, Tiafoe, Opelka/Fritz, Wawrinka/Raonic, Zverev, Thiem, Medvedev/Nadal. Given recent pricing and comparing those to my model, I could see the following: Chardy -10000, -4000 Tiafoe, -2000 Fritz, -500 Wawrinka, -300 Zverev. If you parlay those five prices you get -137 (much better than this quarter price). If you make him around -300 again to Thiem in the semis and -200 to Meds/Nadal in the finals, you get +250. Regardless, I won’t be backing Djokovic. For one, he had a blister issue at the ATP Cup. That might be nothing, it might blossom into a real problem. With his injury and withdrawl history, I’m easily scared off. Additionally, there is the Stan factor. Djokovic is better than almost anyone on tour on any given day; this is factual. And on the face of it, he “owns” Wawrinka; 20-6 head to head. However, if you JUST look at Slams and Davis Cup (5 sets baby (stupid, ridiculous ATP Cup)), Djokovic is only 5-4 against Stan. And he started 4-0. Their last five Slam matchups up have gone 4-1 in favour of Stan. Even in Djokovic’s five wins, four went the distance and once Stan retired with injury. Novak has NEVER had an easy time of it against Wawrinka in best of five. Period. They are scheduled to meet in the fourth round. Even if Stan doesn’t beat him, he would certainly inflict damage.
So, what about Stan? Nothing would make me happier than to bet on Wawrinka or to see him win another Slam. But, he has shown, irrespective of price, that he is no longer fit to win a Slam. He can still have moments, and entire matches of brilliance - vs Djoker at the 2019 US Open, vs Tsitsipas at the 2019 French Open, vs Medvedev at the 2020 Aussie. But, he invariably loses the next match. Everytime. Also, and his is pretty random but, Raonic is in his eighth and for whatever reason Stan has struggled with Milos’ serve.
So, what about Milos? If you are betting Raonic you must be under the belief that Novak will be upset in one of his first three matches or you believe his blister/elbow/general weirdness will cause a withdrawal/retirement/ejection. Raonic is 0-11 versus Novak.
The big seed opposite Djokovic is former phenom Alex Zverev. The bloom is off the rose for the one time wundekid and the pressure is mounting exponentially. I had him pegged a few years ago as a multi-time Slam. I still think he has an outside chance at winning one or two but, at 23, wth a still great Novak, a still great Rafa, an in his prime Thiem, two huge age comparable stars in Medvedev and Tsitsipas and a bevy of next generation talent behind him (Sinner, Ruus, Alcaraz, etc), Zverev has a REAL chance of joining the Lost Boys generation (Raonic, Dimitrov, Nishikori, et al) and getting skipped over in the annals of Slam winners. He comes into this Slam with myriad off-court issues, an almost unsolvable coaching issue, and the biggest double fault liability in tennis. Here’s hoping he overcomes it all and wins but, I don’t see it this time around.
If you are looking for a longshot in this quarter, I would, as with ANY longshot advise caution. Big numbers in tennis are extremely hard to capitalize on in Slams. Additionally, this is an incredible tough quarter with only three qualifiers but two Slam winners and four legit threats. However, if you are undeterred I would recommend Emil Ruusuovouri. You almost have to be of the belief that Novak will be get popped early, lose to Stan or come up lame. But, if you believe one of those three things, Ruus is 50/1 to win the quarter and has a decent draw. He has a super tough first match - maybe. Monfils hasn’t won a match in almost exactly a year he’s won a grand total of ONE set since the re-start last August and he seems more interested in Twitch and Instagram than tennis at the moment. Should Emil get through Monfils he has two very winnable matches on deck against the likes of Nishioka, Martinez, Bedene, and Bublik. That would put him in the fourth round against Zverev and that may be a very hedgeable position.
Second Quarter
The second quarter looks ripe for opportunity. Thiem headlines it and he is the defending US Open champ and the defending Aussie finalist. When I hit him to win the US Open it was at 28/1. That kind of value has long been sucked out of his numbers. He comes into this Aussie between 5/1 and 7/1 depending on your book. That’s gross. There is a potential path where he would face Kyrgios, PCB, Sinner or DSS, then Djokovic, then Meds/Nadal. I can’t imagine a rollover wouldn’t dwarf 7/1. The apparent faster surface should impede Thiem a little while helping people like Kyrgios, Sinner and PCB. Thiem got thumped in his only real warm-up match on John Cain, one of the three show courts in Melbourne, and while I think he’ll be fine form-wise (he was also thoroughly piss-poor in “Cincy-NY” the week before winning the US Open) it might be cause for concern if he meets a motivated Kyrgios, who serves much like Berrettini. I think Thiem will once again be a threat at the French and the US and I’ll wait for him there.
I just mentioned Kyrgios and the word motivation in the same sentence. How appropriate. I am sure everyone agrees, if he cares (and maybe actually worked out) he could win this. As it is, 40/1 outright and 6/1 to win the quarter don’t do it for me. I’ll start betting on NK when he starts stretching before a match.
Carreno Busta is the other seeded player in Thiem’s eighth. I view him in the same vein as Raonic. He's a great option as long as you think his path will open up. He is 0-7 vs Thiem at the ATP level (beat him once on the futures tour when Thiem was 19) and he is 0-2 vs NK. He is listed at 250/1 to win outright but only 20/1 to win his quarter. That is terrible math considering most high end guys have quarter prices that are roughly 1/6 th or 1/7 th of their outright.
The bottom eighth of the quarter has some very intriguing names. Shapovalov, Sinner, Auger-Aliassime and Schwartzman all reside here and if you can ignore the fact that Shapo and Sinner play each other in the first round, you could all four got a decent draw. Schwartzman may have the best path to the 4th round of any seeded player in the draw and he is getting more proficient on hard courts all the time. His fourth round match will presumably be one of the other three players I just listed and then he’ll have to face Thiem. Here’s why I think he’ll at least get to Thiem. FAA has shown in big matches (namely finals where he is now 0-7 and in Slams where he has only made it to the fourth round once and he had a plum path to do it) that he still suffers from some kind of nerves. He also just went a full six matches in seven days to “warm-up”. Shapo has ben showing signs of injury both early this year and last autumn. He has lost his last six matches, dating back to the initial shoulder injury in St. Petersburg and a lot of those were winnable matches (Gilles Simon, Rodionov, Radu Albot). Jannik Sinner, like FAA just played six matches in seven days to win the Great Ocean title. He was legit my choice to come out of this quarter until last night. He has won 10 straight matches, collecting back to back titles along the way and his three losses since the French Open have been to Rafael Nadal, Alex Zverev and Andrey Rublev (he retired against Rublev). That’s elite company. But, it looks like he picked up an injury of some sort against Travaglia and I would hate to lose a bet because Sinner gets pushed to five sets early against Shapo and then wilts in a later match. If you think he is healthy, then by all means, fire away. I think he could make the quarter-finals if he is fully recovered.
If neither DSS nor Sinner interest you and you want a long shot than the pickings are slim. PCB at 20/ is probably the best option but, as I’ve laid out he has an uphill climb. The quarter is filled with guys who prefer clay courts and older generation guys (Cilic, Dimitrov, Nishikori, etc) who have shown (recently) not to be able to stand up to five rounds of Slam pressure (this isn’t 2014). DSS at 11/1 is the longshot, I think.
Third Quarter
The third quarter is where I see fireworks. It is book-ended by the guys who I think are going to win this event. I took a position on Rublev last October 5th (that you can read here) when he running rough-shod over the 2020 tour. Much like taking Khachanov at 66/1 before the Paris 2018 final to win the Aussie (he went off at 25/1), and Thiem 28/1 after the 2019 US Open to win the 2020 US Open (he went off at 10/1) I took Rublev at 40/1 because I didn’t think that number would be available on game day. He’s currently 22/1 or 25/1 depending on your book. It’s not a terrible price. He is, maybe, still, the hottest player on tour. He is legitamately destroying his opponents. At the ATP Cup last week he won eight sets and was only pushed to nine games once. The one set he lost (3-6 to Struff) was avenged with a 6-1,6-2 drubbing. His path the quarter-final looks about as good as you could hope for. Maybe he gets pushed by RBA but the last two times they played Rublev came out on top. It genuinely sucks that Rublev landed in Medvedev’s quarter as he has historically struggled mightily with his compatriot. Rublev is 0-4 against Meds and has never won a set (a very Spaniard vs Nadal complex there). But, I am locked in from way prior to the draw, so close my eyes and hope.
After seeing the draw and watching a bunch tennis last week, the guy I want this week is Medvedev. After a great 2018 (where I backed Medvedev a ton) and an epic 2019 (where I backed Medvedev almost as much)I expected a small step back from Medvedev in 2020. Two steps forward, one step back. And he didn’t disappoint. Like Andy Murray after his insane 2016 (Meds was younger and could probably withstand the exertion, Murray has never been the same since) Meds cooled off substantially. After four titles and six finals to end 2019 it took him until the last two events in 2020 to get back to that level. And let me tell you, I saw that coming too. Here’s me predicting he’d win Paris and here’s me predicting he’d win the year end Finals. Like Rublev he is legit destroying competition right now and seems to have re-peaked. He suffered agonizing losses to Nadal at the US Open and the 2019 year end finals but, he avenged that ATP finals loss last year and this venue should be quicker and more to liking than the slow US Open courts should he meet Nadal in the semis this year. 16 months on from that US Open loss, I think Meds is in the right spot to put Nadal away this time (if Nadal even makes it that far). I love his path too - Pospisil hasn’t played a match yet, none of Balazs, RCB, Halys, Andujar, Haase and Krajinovic would consider hard courts to be their best surface. Meds should make the fourth roud unscathed. Coric and Goffin loom there and while they could be problematic, Meds’ form should shine through. He has lost four times to Coric but all four pre-dated 2019 and their careers have diverged from there (Coric has been drifting down since peaking in early 2018 at #12). Goffin has shown he is good for about one top ten upset a year. He has one win each over Djoker and Fed that I can’t explain (I watched both too) and he’s beaten Nadal and Thiem three times a piece. I personally have bad luck with Goffin, so I’d rather not see him here. Should he survive to the quarter-finals, well, he owns Rublev (if he loses to Rublev, it won’t break my heart with a 40/1 ticket). And like I said earlier, should Nadal actually make the semis, Meds has the tools to beat him now. In the finals, I like his chances against either Thiem or Djoker, especially is the courts are playing a little quicker. When it comes to moneyline rollover, he would have to face Goffin, Rublev, Nadal, Djoker to get me beyond the +450. I’m not sure Goffin makes it to the fourth round and I am not sure given his recent form (destroyed by Alcaraz) that I have the price right. I am also not sure Nadal survives to the semis. So, I feel like +450 is worthy of a shot.
I don’t think there are long shot possibilities in this quarter with maybe the two hottest players on tour book-ending the bracket. The odds of getting through both are crazy high and with floaters like RBA, Coric and Goffin to also navigate around, if you fancy someone in this quarter, just bet their moneyline each match and they would easily clear whatever numbers you are seeing offered.
Fourth Quarter
I’ll forever be in the camp that Nadal gets the rosiest of red carpets in these draws. A full TEN of the 29 qualifiers and wildcards in the draw “landed” in the fourth qurter. How… convienient. Nadal hasn’t played a match yet due to a mysteriou sback injury and that easily scares me off backing him. As does the potential for faster courts (see Djokovic-Nadal 2019 Aussie Final). Should Nadal be healthy he will face one of the true clay courters on tour in round one, then potentially get a qualifier in round two and round three, as there are three qualifiers just in his like 16th of the draw. The one threat is Dan Evans and he is coming off his first title at 30 years of age. I imagine his body parts will be elsewhere. If you think Nadal is healthy, he shoudl roll through the first four rounds. His potential fourth round match up is with DeMinaur or Fog. He has proven 12 times Fog isn’t really a problem and he is 3-0 against DeMinaur. The upper part of the bracket looks tempting. Kevin Anderson, Karen Khachanov, Tsitsispas and Berrettini all reside there. While that’s a great collection it also means they are potential landmines for each other. KK has shown for some time now that he is vulnerable against almost anyone. Anderson showed last week, against KK no less, that he can still struggle to break serve and may not be back to 100% after his 2018 run (see: Murray 2017 previously discussed). Tsitsipas has, like Zverev, long been hanging around the top ten and threatened to break through. However, his game seems so serve dependent that he is almost just like a slightly more fleet version of Isner. Like Raonic too, if his serve is on he can take tight matches but if he is to avoid coin flip tiebreaks against upper echelon people his margins are razor thin. He easily has one of the lowest break percentage (19%) on hard courts of anyone in the top ten and is like a full 10% below the tippy top guys like Djoker (30%), Nadal (28%) and Meds (28%). Berrettini suffers from the same issue. His break percentage on a hard court is even lower than the Greeks. Matteo comes in at 15%. Wawrinka in 2014 at the Aussie and Cilic at the 2014 US Open were not only the two biggest longshots to win in recent memory they were also had by far the lowest break percentage of any Slam champs in the Federer-era. Wawrinka was 23% and Cilic was 22%. How are Tsitsipas and Berrettini getting it done at 19% and 15%?
I think this quarter is truly a crap shoot. And I’ll gladly throw my hat in the ring with a flyer on a long shot like Hurkacz. He won the Delray Beach title this year already and may have won the Great Ocean title if not for a rain delay that seemed to sap his willingness to keep going. He’s in great form, has plenty of matches under his belt and is the right age for a breaktrough. He’ll have to get through wonder kid Alcaraz or tiebreak king Van de Zandschulp in the second round, then Tsitsipas in the third round (he is 1-5 vs Tsitty which is… not good). He’ll have to play Berrettini in the fourth round (1-1) and then presumably (hopefully) someone not named Nadal in the quarter-finals. That’s why they call it a longshot.
Picks:
