Australian Open: Nadal and Murray play it straight Down Under
Published:
All eyes will be on Melbourne this Tuesday morning with Britain’s great hope Andy Murray in action against home favourite Nick Kyrgios and expected to progress to a semi-final showdown with old adversary Rafael Nadal.
The Scot has already overcome some of his demons to get here having beaten Grigor Dimitrov, the man who dumped him out of Wimbledon last year, with a 3-1 win.
And here at Ladbrokes we are confident Murray can get the job done with minimal fuss while big tips are available on the matches involving both Nadal and Maria Sharapova – read on to find out the top picks of the day.
The Spaniard may have endured a scare in round two, coming back from 2-1 down to beat US outsider Tim Smyczek but other than that it’s been a relatively straightforward march to the last eight for Nadal, who has won all of his other matches in straight sets.
Berdych has enjoyed a stress-free procession thus far, but his penchant for falling apart against the big boys could come into play again here with the Czech no.1 winning just one set in his last six meetings with Nadal.
World no.7 Bouchard has picked up where she left off last year, when she made the semi-finals of both the Australian Open and French Open as well as the final at Wimbledon and despite her
poor head-to-head record against Sharapova, the Canadian could be ready to make the step-up.
She was unlucky to lose to the Russian last time they met at Roland Garros – winning the first set and looking good in the second until a fumble on serve with the score 6-5 to her rival – and with Sharapova already saving one match point en route to this match, we think change is afoot.
The Scot looks to be getting back to his best and after surging back from 5-2 down to take the fourth set and the match against Dimitrov in the last round, we see little reason why he can’t progress past Kyrgios with ease, having never lost a set to the Australian.
He may have the home crowd behind him but the chances are that the previous week’s excursions will have taken it out of the 19-year-old, who has played some 17 sets of tennis so far in Melbourne, compared with Murray’s 13.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
Fancy a flutter? Sign up today to claim up to £25 in free bets.
