The Weekly Accumulator: Almagro to exit Australian Open

With Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer both 1/100 for first-round success, our Australian Open accumulator focuses on some of the lesser lights in action.

Juan Martin del Potro is another of the big names on show, but is hard to back at 1/16 to beat Adrian Mannarino, particularly as he was beaten in his only previous showdown with the Italian.

Therefore, it is left to Mardy Fish to headline our accumulator for the opening day’s men’s action and in total we have picked six games that pay an attractive 28/1 if all successful.

We are expecting an early shock in the Australian Open, with tenth seed Nicolas Almagro potentially running into trouble against Lukasz Kubot.

Almagro went out in the first round of his last hard court Grand Slam when being dumped out of the US Open by Julien Benneteau and he also has a tendency for enjoying five-set thrillers in Melbourne.

Another may arrive against Kubot, who won the last meeting between the pair at the French Open last year on Almagro’s favoured clay court.

Fish is our biggest favourite and has not only won his only previous encounter with Gilles Muller, but he has far the stronger form of 2012 thus far, with victories over the likes of Tomas Berdych and Jurgen Meltzer.

Meltzer also makes the accumulator to beat Ivo Karlovic to extend his winning head-to-head record against the big-serving Croatian to 6-0, while we also expect Grigor Dimitrov to make his class tell against an out-of-form Jeremy Chardy.

Elsewhere, David Nalbandian can beat a tired Jarkko Nieminen and Alejandro Falla’s positive run in Auckland recently can see him past Fabio Fognini.

Australian Open selections

Mardy Fish to beat Gilles Muller @ 1/4
Alejandro Falla to beat Fabio Fognini @ 8/15
Jurgen Meltzer to beat Ivo Karlovic @ 4/7
David Nalbandian to beat Jarkko Nieminen @ 8/11
Grigor Dmitrov to beat Jeremy Chardy @ 8/13
Lukasz Kubot to beat Nicolas Almagro @ 9/4