January 1 - January 8

[CzechPunter]

Hopman Cup and stuff

[KennyDelight]

On 27/12/2016, 11:54:09, CzechPunter said:

Hopman Cup and stuff

Happy New Year to you Czech Punter, BOL with your picks again this year

Would you have any insight into the Czech Republic Hopman Cup opening matches. Any value in the match ups?

Hradecka called up to replace Kvitova and faces Coco Vandeveghe, from patches I saw last year of both they seem to be vulnerable on the second serve and can mentally drift out of matches?

and Pavlasek v Sock

Edited December 31, 2016 by KennyDelight

[CzechPunter]

Happy New Year to you as well - in fact, Happy New Year to everyone here!

I'm not going to bet on anything today/tomorrow, but I don't see any upsets in the CZE-USA match. I can see Hradecka/Vandeweghe being fairly long and the doubles are such a short format this time around that pretty much every single underdog should have a chance, but that's all I can say really.

[four-leaf]

Alex De Minaur to beat Frances Tiafoe at 2.50 with bet365

Alex kickstarts the season with a win to qualify for his first ATP tournament at home in Brisbane. I like what Alex has shown so far and he will be poised to proceed up the rankings this season. He has got a good game and Frances didn't make anyone happy at the end of last season. He didn't finish the season in optimal ways as Alex did.

[BuffChestmen]

Querrey -1.5 @ 1.900 Pinnacle .5 unit

I think this line is too tight. Schwartzman finished last year strong and Querrey like he usually does but these court conditions heavily favor Querrey. He'll be tough to break and Schwartzman's ineffective 2nd serve is very vulnerable to a guy like Querrey.

[CzechPunter]

Okay, then. I won't be taking a look at any matches today, but last year's season bets went well, so I've taken a look through what's on offer for 2017. Unibet have already pulled theirs, so I might've missed something, but here we go with what I was able to find.

Back Angelique Kerber to win a Singles Grand Slam Title at 3.00 with Paddy Power

Kerber is almost guaranteed to have a worse year than in 2016, but she's competitive on all four surfaces and who knows how good Serena will be, so 3.00 looks quite big to me really.

Back Naomi Osaka to beat Ana Konjuh at 1.72 with Coral

Back Kiki Bertens Ranking - Under 32.5 at 1.80 with Skybet

Osaka is a much bigger talent in my eyes, massive serve as well, so she could go really far in 2017, while I'm not that convinced about Konjuh. Bertens also has a lot of potential and I think that she'll improve on 2016.

Back Gael Monfils to beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at 2.00 with Skybet

Back Lucas Pouille to beat Alexander Zverev at 2.00 with Coral

Back Thomaz Bellucci to beat Daniel Evans at 1.72 with Coral

Monfils improved in 2016, while Tsonga didn't - and there's also a good chance that he'll have some personal responsibilities to deal with in 2017. Zverev is a big talent, but Pouille has the consistency factor on his side and I think that he could also go really far in one Grand Slam with a little bit of luck. Finally, I've always had Bellucci as a much better player than Evans - and I'm not sure what should change in the upcoming season.

Back Dominic Thiem Ranking - Under 12.5 at 1.91 with Skybet

Back Tomas Berdych Ranking - Over 11.5 at 2.00 with Skybet

Some go up and some go down - and I think that we might see that contrast with Thiem and Berdych in 2017. Thiem is steadily improving, while Berdych seems to be stumbling and falling down. He's certainly less consistent than before - and you do need a lot of consistency to finish high in the ATP nowadays.

Back Top Spaniard - Rafael Nadal at 1.72 with Coral

Back Top Brit (except Murray) - Kyle Edmund at 1.66 with Betway

This is probably self-explanatory, but the main points are that Nadal looked good in Abu Dhabi and that there's a big gap between Edmund and all the other Brits, so he could win this even if he doesn't do incredibly well himself.

[BuffChestmen]

Top Spaniard Nadal @ 1.72 is nuts. It's a bit of a long wait to get your return but that's an amazing price for Nadal. I don't think performs like a top 5 this year but he'll be top 10 and there ain't no other Spaniard out there that's going to be top 10. Maybe even top 20.

[four-leaf]

Marina Erakovic to beat Jelena Ostapenko at 2.25 with bet365

Only ranking makes Jelena the favourite in this one. Marina can easily take advantage of the many unforced errors from the raquet of Jelena. Had a bet on Jelena last season to be the highest ranked player compared to three others and she only did one good thing the hole season and that was when she reached the final in Doha I think where her best tournament was where she lost to Carla Suárez Navarro but she beat Petra Kvitova and Svetlana Kuznetsova on her way to it. Anyway she started the season in awful fashion down under beating Johanna Larsson in straight sets and then falling to Naomi Broady after being up one set and leading 5-2 in second and 5-1 in third. It was just awful to see and that was only the beginning since she played many matches like that through out the hole season. I think she will do it again against Marina who is the home player in Auckland where this match takes place tomorrow. This is the only tournament where you can count on Marina to be fully motivated and do well.

[KennyDelight]

Opening bet of year, not big stakes mind simply because not worth it at this time

Bojana Coric 2/1 v Hyeon Chung @ ATP Chennai Bet365

Bojana Coric was a finalist last year and produced some decent performances v some bigger names throughout the year on the hard court surface whilst Chung played majority of his on the challenger. I don't understand these odds unless we believe Chung has the advantage of playing a few matches in qualifying

[CzechPunter]

2 hours ago, KennyDelight said:

Opening bet of year, not big stakes mind simply because not worth it at this time

Bojana Coric 2/1 v Hyeon Chung @ ATP Chennai Bet365

Bojana Coric was a finalist last year and produced some decent performances v some bigger names throughout the year on the hard court surface whilst Chung played majority of his on the challenger. I don't understand these odds unless we believe Chung has the advantage of playing a few matches in qualifying

Were the odds really that big? 2/1 = 3.00, but I could see only 2.00 everywhere pre-match, might be just a formatting error from your side.

[four-leaf]

Alex De Minaur to beat (+3.5) Mischa Zverev at 1.83 with bet365

I'll keep on playing on Alex. Now he's got the older Zverev against him who finished last season pretty well with a quarter in Shanghai where he took a set off of Djokovic and a semifinal in Basel where he knocked out Stan Wawrinka who finished last season pretty bad. 

Anyway I still strongly belive this match will be tight enough for Alex to cover 3.5 games. He's got pretty good groundstrokes and plays solid from the baseline and has a lot of selfconfidence coming in to this. It wont be so easy for Mischa to break serve here.

Edited January 2, 2017 by four-leaf

[four-leaf]

Johanna Konta to beat (-5.5) Vania King at 1.72 with bet365

Can't see Vania having mutch of a chance here since she will be completely outplayed in every aspect of the game. They met last season in Montreal and Johanna won 7-5 6-1 that time. Johanna destroyed Cagla Buyukakcay 6-2 6-0 in a clinical effort in her first round match when Vania played out a three set battle against Maria Sakkari. Should be something similar as last year when they went head to head.

Karolina Pliskova to beat (-5.5) Asia Muhammad at 1.72 with bet365

Karolina completely destroyed Yulia Putintseva 6-3 6-1 in her first round match and should easily destroy Asia also even if she's qualified and played well so far but that's only by her standards.

Should be two pretty straight forward matches by both players.

Edited January 2, 2017 by four-leaf

[CzechPunter]

[four-leaf]

Christina Mchale to beat Alizé Cornet at 2.00 with bet365

Christina leads the head to head 2-1. She's won their only meeting in Australia before but all their three matches they've played have gone to a deciding set so this match is kind of a toss up when looking at their past meetings. Alizé had a good start to a pretty moderate 2016 where she took the title in Hobart because of an easy draw in that tournament where pretty mutch every player she met played bad. Even Bouchard in the final. Alizé started off by beating Elena Vesnina and that was kind of strong but considering everything about that this is a toss up I still dare to say Christina is the better player right now.

[CzechPunter]

[CzechPunter]

[GIVEUSASPELL]

I like andrea petkovic at odds of 2.32 against Belinda bencic is good value IMO. the h2h record is against her but there is no massive gap between the 2.

both can play well and both can have mental laspes just depends which one turns up

[CzechPunter]

[CzechPunter]

Not the start that I wanted obviously, but I'm kinda used to these streaks after 2016. Here we go with some night matches.

 

[ogii55]

Davis - Ostapenko around 2.00

 

Davis continues to impress. She beat two Top 25 players very easy. She finished strong last year and seems that her improvement is visible. Ostapenko had easier path to the 1/2-final. She could have serious problems against running players like Davis if her shots are not entering as she want.

 

 

[Robinnho]

Though H2H is 0-4, Svitolina has matured and improved a lot since her last meeting with Pliskova K in Yr 2015.

Svitolina @2.08

[HeyPunter]

When's Australian Open starting ? 

[CzechPunter]

16th, @HeyPunter.

Meanwhile, that was a really strange performance from Nadal. Everything was fine until 6-4 *3-4, he was much better than Raonic in fact, even had a couple of BPs to make it *3-2 before that and probably cruise to a simple win. Raonic then got in a few good returns and Nadal completely fell apart, losing two serves in a row, which I thought was highly uncharacteristic given how he's played so far in the new season. Raonic was nothing special, poor on the volleys in fact, but his serve saved him (excellent in the decider) and he took the few chances, so fair play to him, could do wonders for his confidence as well. Should be an interesting AO in any case, especially since there are rumours of the courts being faster this year. The ATP looks pretty compact, but the WTA is a mess.

[DrO]

Czech,i loved to read your Grand Slam previews on Men's and Women's draw both. Or to be more precise - outright betting on Grand Slams. You stopped doing that in some point. Why?
Can we expect some of that stuff before AO starts?

[ogii55]

Duran/Molteni - Raja/Sharan 2.7 Pinnacle

 

The match is starting in 30 minutes. Duran/Molteni are usually clay courters, but here they are impressing with two wins over better doubles than Raja/Sharan. The Indian double is not bad, but I think they are lacking the experience and class of Duran/Molteni, who are shoing very nice form. The match is pretty much 50/50, let's say 55/45 for Raja.Sharan becase of home court advantage, but those odds are pretty much nice.

 

 

[ogii55]

Verdasko - Nole 9.65 5dimes

Verdasco is playing like in his best days. He broke so many times Ivo Karlovic, who we know that is serving as a devil. Nole once again is having some problems with his lens. Probably it's because of the desert. He is not playing at his best. Nole vs Verdasko is 9:5 in their all time claches and Fernando is one of the few players to have such a close H2H active against Djokovic.

 

[CzechPunter]

1 hour ago, DrO said:

Czech,i loved to read your Grand Slam previews on Men's and Women's draw both. Or to be more precise - outright betting on Grand Slams. You stopped doing that in some point. Why?
Can we expect some of that stuff before AO starts?

Yep, I stopped doing that with the recent re-design and everything, just before the US Open I believe. I'm not ruling anything out going into the future and I'll write some longer paragraphs if I have some insights to share, but I don't think it will happen every single time.

[CzechPunter]

[DrO]

Does anyone have thoughts about Murray - Joker match?

[CzechPunter]

Murray with the edge certainly, better player so far in the tournament. I'm not sure if there's any value in his odds, however - and I'm in such a bad form at the moment that you probably shouldn't trust me that much.