Australian Open Women's Singles Day Five: Rybakina capable of pushing Barty

Action continues in the women's singles at the Australian Open and Dan Weston is back to discuss the value as we move into the third round...

Bencic triumphs to continue Ostapenko's service woes

We managed to pick up a winner on Thursday with Belinda Bencic getting past Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets, with Ostapenko again struggling on serve - an issue which I identified in the preview - winning just 46% of service points in the match in total. In other matches today there were again little in the way of shocks, although I mentioned as well that Danielle Collins looked over-rated for her clash with Yulia Putintseva and the Kazakh prevailed in three sets signalling a big drop in the rankings for Collins after she failed to defend her semi-final points from here last season. It looks like she will lose around 25 spots, going from her current ranking of 25 to around the 50 mark following that defeat.

Goerges with edge over Riske

Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of pre-match value in Friday's matches, with there being only small discrepancies to note between model and market, although I think Julia Goerges looks reasonable value at 1.96 for her match with Alison Riske. Numbers suggest that the courts have sped up after initially being quite slow - probably due to Monday's rain - and quick conditions should suit both players. However Goerges is a real fast condition specialist and her hard court numbers in general are marginally better than Riske's.

Rybakina can compete against Barty

The other player highlighted as being some slight value is Elena Rybakina, who is 3.95 for her match against top seed Ashleigh Barty. While we already know plenty about Barty's abilities, Rybakina has been accumulating an excellent all-surface win/loss record across the last year on the main tour which has seen her be seeded 29 for this tournament - an impressive feat given that she doesn't turn 21 until the summer.

Rybakina's numbers are also good - she's running at around the 104% combined service/return points won percentage mark - and these numbers give her a better chance than the market indicates for this match.

Given general market pricing we should be able to get around even money on Rybakina -4.5 games when the Exchange market settles, and this looks a reasonable spot to extract the value, albeit one which seems best suited for a small stake.

Gauff faces US Open rematch with Osaka

In other matches, Cori Gauff has a rematch from her US Open third round match against Naomi Osaka, with the world number three, Osaka, a similar price at 5.00 to that meeting at the end of August last season. I think that despite Gauff's obvious improvement, the price looks about right, and she will be hoping for a better display than in New York, where she took just three games.

Wozniacki hoping to prolong career with win over Jabeur

We also see Serena Williams back in action, with the tournament favourite looking justifiable at 1.12 for her clash with Qiang Wang, while Caroline Wozniacki will be hoping to delay her retirement once again as she faces the Tunisian, Ons Jabeur. Wozniacki looks about right priced at 1.45 to prolong her career for at least one more match and then face the prospect of playing her close friend Williams in the fourth round.