Australian Open Day 9 Recap

Recap of Day 9 matches and bets we made below. Have also included the original handicaps for each play to give you guys a look at how our theories played out in reality. 

Not a great day, but we were frankly a point here and there away from easily cashing Over 22 in Barty / Kvitova, which was our strongest play of the day. Would make that bet again in a heartbeat, and there was close to a 30% chance of the Under hitting after that match went into a set 1 tiebreak. 

Time to recap the action and move on to an incredible slate of matches in QF round:

Day 9 Results = 3-3, -$1.3

✖️Fed -2.5 sets $2.1
✅Fed  O32 $1.7 / $1.5
✅Kenin -1.5 set $0.5 / $0.55
✅Kenin -3.5 gm $0.6 / $0.5
✖️Kvitova O22 $1.25
✖️Kvitova ML $0.5

AO Total thru Day 9 = 52-45, +$1.9

Sofia Kenin vs Ons Jabeur (Kenin -1.5 set @ +110, Kenin -3.5 gm @ -120)

This match went roughly as expected. Jabeur showed up and played a solid match, but Kenin was too strong in the end and showed some strong nerve in high pressure moments. We noted in our preview that Kenin should have a big advantage on 2nd serve and break points, and this is essentially where the match was won (Kenin 55% on 2nd serve vs. 37% for Jabeur, 6/7 BP save vs. 6/9 for Jabeur). Kenin turned up the heat and held Jabeur off while facing 3 BP at 2-3 in the 2nd, and that was all she wrote as Jabeur seemed to put everything into that game.

I think Kenin actually matches up well vs. Barty. She is essentially a more aggressive / better version of Q Wang, hitting very flat groundstrokes and showing good movement on court. Flat ground strokes tend to give Barty some trouble, and she will have all the pressure in the world on her shoulders. Will run numbers on it tonight and figure out the angle of attack

Ashleigh Barty vs Petra Kvitova (Kvitova ML @ +115 for ½ unit / Over 22 gm -120 for 1 unit)

Tough pill to swallow on Kvitova ML and particularly on O22. This was a very tight match in the first set, with both players having their chances and it ultimately coming down to a tiebreaker (both players had won exactly the same amount of points in the match at one point during that tiebreaker). We looked in great shape on the total going into the breaker, and even after Kvitova lost the set we had a straight line to cashing O22 (13 games played, Kvitova serving first so even a 1 break loss from her in set 3 gives us +10 and gets us to 23)

However, Kvitova lost her serve to give Barty the breaker and all the air came out of her balloon. She re-emerged in the 2nd looking discouraged and tired, and immediately gave up her first service game. She then went down a double break, broke back late to get us back on track for the over before losing her last service game and cucking us on our bet in a big way.

Takeaways – Barty played a competent and professional match. It was clear she dealt with some nerves at certain stages, and she did not put forth a fantastic performance by any means. The match could have gone either way and I have a feeling we would be looking at a very different 2nd set had Kvitova won that breaker. Regardless, she showed mental grit to make it through here and she simply fought a little bit harder than Kvitova. No complaints with either of the two bets we made here, despite losing both. This was an extremely tight match early on and it essentially came down to a coin flip in that breaker (and I’ll take +115 in a coin flip any day). Barty simply won the big points and Kvitova suffered a letdown after that disappointment.

Roger Federer vs Tennys Sandgren (Federer -2.5 sets @-140 / Over 32 gm @ -110)

What a match! We expected Sandgren to outperform his 1Y and 6M data given the form he’s been on, and used his 3M / 1M data against Roger’s historical data in our model to reflect that. This turned out to be the correct decision, but he even outperformed that sample of data within the context of his match.

Fed took the first set easily, dropped the 2nd after an early break. In the 3rd, we started to see him struggle with an injury, and it became clear he was not 100% physically and he was moving poorly and could not get anything going against Sandgren’s serve. Sandgren quickly took a 3-1 set lead, but Federer showed why he is one of the greatest competitors of all time by massaging his way to a breaker in set 4, winning the breaker, and taking the 5th set without facing a break point.

Takeaways: We were absolutely correct that Sandgren would beat expectations in this matchup, and we come away from the tournament incredibly impressed with the improvements to his game. He has clearly taken a step forward and it will be interesting to see how he performs in coming weeks when the stakes are relatively lower. I will look to back him if he retains this level of focus / intensity, but we’ve seen him revert before after runs like this. Federer did very well to get through this match, but I have a tough time giving him a fair chance to beat Djoko given the injury he is clearly carrying. Perhaps it was more soreness than an actual muscle pull or structural issue, but we will have to monitor this carefully before placing any wagers on that match.

Novak Djokovic vs Milos Raonic (Pass)

Was curious to see how Raonic fared here, as statistical excellence on serve starts to have an almost exponential effect on win probability once you get up into the 80% serve point win rate, regardless of how poor you are on return. Raonic hadn’t faced a single break point coming into this match, and had done a good job being aggressive / picking his spots on return, knowing all he needed was the occasional break to win sets with ease.

That said, Djoko’s pure excellence in the return game was likely to negate this, and that’s what we saw as the match played out. Djoko fared very well against the Raonic 2nd serve, and Milos didn’t have a great day re: getting his first serves in (63%). We considered playing Raonic on the game spread in hopes that he could get a set or 2 to a breaker and cash +6, but did not pull the trigger as our model showed that the distance between Djokovic’s return and the average return negated enough of Raonic’s serve delta vs. the average serve to give him a significant edge (considering that Djoko was always likely to serve well in this match). In the end, we were right about the reasons not to place the bet, but the gm spread would have pushed on +6 as Raonic took set 3 to a tie break.

Takeaways – Djoko looks like he is peaking again and will likely brush Federer off in the Semi-Final. He looks highly likely to win this tournament, as Nadal will struggle against Djokovic in these slow + low bouncing conditions. Only bogey there are 2 wild cards in Thiem and Zverev – both seem like they are hitting peak form, and may present difficult challenges to Djoko. Thiem actually beat him in the fall on Indoor Hard, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he has the best chance of anyone left in the draw to upset Novak.