Australian Open Men's Day Three Tips

Australian Open Men's Day Three Tips: Griekspoor to test Carreno-Busta

The Australian Open moves to the second round stage on Wednesday, and returning to preview the day ahead in the men's singles is our tennis columnist, Dan Weston...

Contrasting wins for British duo

Heavy favourites got the job done on Tuesday in Melbourne with the likes of Andrey Rublev, Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas earning pretty routine victories. British interest continues with Dan Evans easily defeating David Goffin, in rather contrasting style to Andy Murray, who needed a five setter lasting almost four hours to defeat Nikoloz Basilashvili for the second time in a week. A potential clash for Murray against Sinner on Friday awaits, should they emerge victorious in round two.

Karatsev potentially fatigued for McDonald clash

Out of the 16 matches on tomorrow's card, there are a few worth discussing in a little detail from a pre-match perspective. Firstly, when I saw that Aslan Karatsev was 1.57 against Mackenzie McDonald I thought he'd be a value favourite, but I forgot that he backed up his win in Sydney (10 sets in five days) with a five-setter lasting over four hours against Jaume Munar in round one. That accumulated fatigue which I have written about on numerous occasions could well be an issue for Karatsev moving forward, and McDonald is competent enough to take advantage of it, should it be a problem for the Russian.

Improving Griekspoor should give strong account of himself

Tallon Griekspoor picked up five of Challenger titles towards the back end of 2021 (on clay, plus indoor and outdoor hard) and actually ended the season on a 26 match unbeaten run. He was favourite in all but two of those matches, but such an achievement shouldn't be ignored.

The Dutchman withdrew from his match against Rafa Nadal in Melbourne but bounced back with a win over Fabio Fognini in round one here, in straight sets.

It's also worth noting that Griekspoor beat two higher ranked opponents in Melbourne several weeks ago as well, prior to that withdrawal.

It seems pretty evident that Griekspoor is on an upward curve and he could easily be a pretty solid test for Pablo Carreno-Busta tomorrow. I'm pretty surprised to see the Spaniard priced up as the 1.40 favourite here and there looks to be some nice handicap value here, with general market pricing giving Griekspoor a 5.5 game head start at around the 1.70 mark. Hopefully the Exchange will provide enough liquidity on this side market in the run-up to the match.

Kecmanovic and Paul looking well-matched

The other spot where I think the market is a bit out of line is the clash between Miomir Kecmanovic and Tommy Paul. Perhaps this match is most famous for being the match which Novak Djokovic would likely have played in, should he not have been deported, and after beating Salvatore Caruso in round one, Kecmanovic will fancy his chances of a round three berth.

The Serbian had a tough year last year but broke on to the main tour as a young player with very high potential, and I wonder whether the more recent performances for the duo (Paul won the Stockholm ATP event in the last week of the season) have influenced the market here. I make Paul a favourite, but only a very marginal one.