Australian Open Men's Day Seven Tips

Australian Open Men's Day Seven Tips: Carreno-Busta can shock Berrettini

There's plenty to discuss as the Australian Open moves towards the fourth round, and with four men's singles matches on Sunday, Dan Weston returns to give his thoughts...

Bautista-Agut pipped as De Minaur continues his run

We lost out in a tight five-setter on Saturday with Roberto Bautista-Agut unable to convert a 2-1 set lead against Taylor Fritz, while in the other matches so far, there hasn't been any real shocks, although Dan Evans was very disappointing in his straight-set loss to Felix Auger-Aliassime. Our long-shot outright, Alex De Minaur, easily got past the Spanish clay-courter, Pablo Andujar - he now faces Jannik Sinner and those who got on at around 700.00 pre-tournament now have a pretty healthy position, with the Australian now trading at 85.0 despite only winning three matches priced at 1.30 or below.

Nadal and Zverev expected to progress

Tomorrow, we see the fourth round commence and as has been the case this week, Alexander Zverev and Rafa Nadal are strong favourites to continue their journey towards a potential quarter-final clash. Nadal is just 1.04 against the Frenchman, Adrian Mannarino, while Zverev has a slightly tougher test on paper against Denis Shapovalov.

Shapovalov has actually got the better of Zverev twice in their last three meetings, all of which were played on hard courts (indoor or outdoor). Zverev has markedly improved in the last 12 months and while their last three matches were pretty evenly priced pre-match, Zverev deserves to be favourite here. Saying that, Zverev's price at 1.21 does look a little on the short side, and Shapovalov could well give the German his biggest test so far in the tournament, and be the first player to take a set off him, at the very least.

Monfils can continue impressive season

Gael Monfils is a similar price for his match with Miomir Kecmanovic, and has a slightly bigger data edge over the Serb than Zverev has over Shapovalov. Indeed, Monfils has impressed this season already with a win in Adelaide, and hasn't dropped a set so far at the Australian Open en route to this stage, although he of course has the propensity to be quite inconsistent as he has demonstrated throughout his career. However, even bearing this in mind, I'd be surprised if the Frenchman didn't make the quarter-finals following a win here.

Carreno-Busta undervalued for Berrettini clash

Finally, I felt that Matteo Berrettini was undervalued by the market for his match against Carlos Alcaraz, and the Italian got through a five-set epic against the Spanish teenager. Berrettini again faces Spanish opposition tomorrow, in the form of Pablo Carreno-Busta.

30-year-old Carreno-Busta is obviously a more known quantity with more of an exposed level, and I'm not sure the 2.90 underdog line on him is warranted. Carreno-Busta has been a pretty strong hard courter for a number of years now and while I do think Berrettini should be favourite, there's not that much between the duo on hard courts in the last 12 months.

Add to that the fact that Berrettini was injured towards the back end of last season and played that long five-setter on Friday, it's Carreno-Busta who is Sunday's pick.