Quarter final
Maria Sakkari (4.9) v Naomi Osaka (1.25)
Due to start at 6 pm
Osaka leads their previous matches 3-1. Their most recent meeting was on a hard court in Brisbane in January 2020. Osaka won in 3 sets. Osaka leads 2-1 on hard courts. All Osaka’s wins were in 3 sets. Sakkari won on a hard court in straight sets in August 2018.
Long term overall win percentages are strong for both players but favour Osaka. They both have strong hard court results but Osaka has the lead. She has won 44 of her last 50 matches on hard courts. Sakkari has won 32 of her last 50.
Sakkari was comfortable in her first 2 matches this week. In the last round she faced Jessica Pegula. It was a very tough third set tie break win. Sakkari saved multiple match points before taking the match on her first match point.
Osaka won the Australian Open in February losing just 1 set to Garbine Muguruza. This week she has not lost a set and had a walkover win in the second round. She was comfortable in the last round and beat Elise Mertens who had an MTO in the second set.
I expect Sakkari to be competitive but Osaka will play the big point much better. We have a fair chance of seeing 3 sets. Lay Osaka around 1.15 and remove or reduce liability at 1.30. Back Osaka around 1.80 or if she loses the first set.
Update: The lay of Osaka worked well as Sakkari took the set 6-0. Backing Osaka WOULD have worked well if Betfair had not gone down. Osaka took a 3-0 lead in set 2 and was 4-1 up before Sakkari took the next 5 games. If you backed Osaka after the first set you won’t have had chance to trade out.
Sakkari won 6-0, 6-4.
I have had a handful of questions in the last few months asking about the advice that I give on this blog and also on Twitter. The most common question is asking if the tips are intended to be backed and left to run.
The short answer is “NO”. The slightly longer answer is “HELL NO”. The long answer is that I very rarely leave a back bet to run until the end of the match. I can think of just 2 occasions in the last year. The clue is in the title of the site. The tips are for TRADING.
The aim of the match picks on here and in the Daily Trading Tips emails is to give you a value entry point. After that you need to manage your position. If you have little tennis trading experience here are some simple ways to manage the trade:
Once the price has reached the target price and you have entered your first trade you are waiting for a significant price move in your favour. This can be a break of serve or your player wins the set. Then you should remove some or all of your liability (risk).
If your player does not perform well and gets broken after you have entered the trade then you can exit with a loss.
