Australian Open Men's Day Two Tips

Australian Open Men's Day Two Tips: Tiebreaks highly likely between Cressy and Isner

First round action at the Australian Open continues on Tuesday, and after an opening day men's winner, Dan Weston returns to preview the action...

Nadal and Zverev ease to victories

On an intriguing opening day, we got off to a winning start with Alexander Bublik getting the better of Ernesto Escobedo in four sets. As expected, there were routine wins for big names such as Rafa Nadal and Alexander Zverev, while British number one Cameron Norrie saw his journey ended abruptly by Sebastian Korda in straight sets. It was a bit of a statement win for Korda, who won 58% of points in the match, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he was a player who broke through in a big way this year - perhaps into the top 20.

Murray faces Basilashvili rematch

At least from a neutral perspective, there's some fascinating clashes ahead on day two. Following his run to the final of Sydney last week, Andy Murray faces a rematch with Nikoloz Basilashvili, who he defeated in round two there. That was a tight encounter in which Murray needed to win a second set tiebreak to stay in the match - tennis matches are often won by such fine margins - and the market is less confident about Murray's chances tomorrow than it was last week.

That day, Murray was priced at around 1.35 to get past the Georgian, who is capable of going from the sublime to the ridiculous and had an injury in the ATP Cup the previous week, but the Scotsman is bigger-priced here at 1.58 having drifted a bit from opening lines. This has probably got something to do with Murray at 34 years of age playing five matches last week and the best of five set nature of this particular clash, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was another close match. An Andy Murray victory is far from a foregone conclusion.

Evans favourite over drifting Goffin

There's further British interest in the form of Dan Evans, who faces the drifting David Goffin. The Belgian, Goffin, has dropped down the rankings quite markedly in the last year or two and it's Evans who is the market favourite at 1.31. He retired last time out (against Murray in Sydney) after seven consecutive losses prior to that event - in fact prior to Sydney, he hadn't won a main tour match since May in Rome. Given all of this, it's perhaps understandable that the market is against Goffin here.

Kyrgios with fitness doubts ahead of Broady match

Another player who hasn't won for a while is Nick Kyrgios, who had a pretty light schedule last year and last stepped off court in victory in July in Atlanta. The Australian has also had some fitness issues this year - not playing in the warm-up events - but he's still a favourite at 1.52 against another Brit, the qualifier, Liam Broady.

Broady did superbly to make the main draw, beating strong Challenger level opposition in all three rounds, and could well test Kyrgios here given his lack of game time. Broady isn't far from the top 100 now and a decent showing here will accelerate that prospect.

Cressy vs Isner the clash of big-servers

Finally, a side market looks interesting in the Maxime Cressy versus John Isner match. Both players have held around the 90% mark on hard court in the last 12 months, with Isner having a higher figure but being worse on return. Projected holds are high here so the over 12.5 game line for the first set at 4/6 (with the Sportsbook) comes into reckoning - particularly given both players are priced around the even money mark for the match.

I'm expecting a very competitive clash with very few break point chances throughout.