Ricky Dimon
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The Australian Open tennis continues on Tuesday with the conclusion of first-round competition. Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Emma Raducanu are in action on the women’s side. In the men’s draw, Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev are getting their fortnights underway. Let’s take a look at the best bets to be made on the Day 3 schedule for the season’s first Grand Slam.
Parlay: Jack Draper over Marcos Giron and Emma Raducanu over Shelby Rogers (-133)
I’m backing the 2 Brits together in what makes for a great 2-leg parlay value play. Raducanu is already a Grand Slam champion, having triumphed at the 2021 U.S. Open. Jack Draper, if he can stay healthy for a prolonged period, has a real chance to be the same at some point in his career. The left-hander was almost the champion last week in Adelaide but lost the final in three sets to Jiri Lehecka. Still, Draper is healthy and playing great. Giron, who is 0-2 so far in 2023, should not present much of a problem.
In the women’s contest, it’s a tale of two comebacks. Raducanu missed the last 8 months of 2023 but played well in Auckland, winning one match and then pushing Elina Svitolina to 3 sets. Rogers has not played since Wimbledon last summer and hasn’t won a match since Madrid in the spring.
Laslo Djere over Arthur Cazaux (-130)
Arthur Cazaux has never won a main-draw match at a Grand Slam and has won just a single match on the main tour (not including Challenger and Futures events) in his career. Yes, part of that is because his career has not been long. The 122nd-ranked Frenchman is just 21 years old. But he isn’t a top prospect and doesn’t have many offensive weapons. That doesn’t bode well for a matchup with Laslo Djere, who can grind at the baseline all day long for hours and hours. Many will remember that the veteran Croat led Novak Djokovic 2 sets to love at the U.S. Open last summer. Djere obviously couldn’t get across the finish line in that contest, but his talent was on full display nonetheless. He should be way too good for Cazaux.
Emma Navarro -2.5 games over Xiyu Wang (-114)
I was on the Emma Navarro bandwagon last week in Hobart, where she rolled to her first WTA title. There is no reason to get off it now. Navarro will have had two full days off when she takes the court for her opening match at Melbourne Park, so fatigue should not be a factor. The American’s hot streak dates back all the way to last summer – it wasn’t just in Hobart. Wang is no slouch of an opponent, but she is 34 places behind her opponent at #60 in the world. Navarro is going to take some stopping this fortnight; it almost certainly won’t be by Wang.
