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Here are my Australian Open Picks today on Tuesday, Jan. 16 including Korda vs Halys and Thompson vs Tsitsipas.
The second round of the Australian Open gets underway on Tuesday, and with fewer matches the decisions as to which matches present the best value get more difficult. The nightcap in Melbourne should offer a few easy calls, however, and they happen to come on massive underdogs.
Let's get into how to bet Korda vs Halys and Thompson vs Tsitsipas. Here are my Australian Open picks today.
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Australian Open Picks Today
Sebastian Korda (-390) vs. Quentin Halys (+300)
10:15 p.m. ET
Sebastian Korda is a player I'm looking to fade this week. The American has big talent and has already beaten some of the best in the world at just 23 years of age, but he's failed to produce any kind of consistency and finds himself in a rut at the moment.
Korda's highest level is close to one you'd see out of a top-10 player, but his lowest level is incredibly low. That's what we've seen through the first two weeks of the season in a couple of bad losses and three shaky wins. His first round encounter with qualifier Vit Kopriva saw him fumble away a 2-0 lead and fall behind a break in the fifth — and that match came against a player who is relatively not very dangerous.
Halys, meanwhile, is incredibly dangerous. He had to dig incredibly deep to find a way to solve what was an extraordinary level of tennis out of Lloyd Harris in the first round — a match which featured nearly perfect stuff from the South African. He was absolutely annihilating his serve and made very few errors from the baseline, yet it was Halys who had the answers, using his giant serve to his advantage.
I don't suspect Korda, with the way he's looked, will run away with this one. He was really struggling on return against Jiri Lehecka in his last match before the Australian Open, and Halys arguably packs a bigger punch on serve. This is going to be a very difficult match, and I could see Korda — who doesn't display very good body language when the going gets tough — becoming incredibly frustrated by the number of free points Halys is able to earn.
At worst for Halys bettors, this is a match with perhaps multiple tiebreaks and very few breaks of serve. At best, the Frenchman dusts an American down on his luck.
Picks: Halys +4.5 games, Halys ML (+300)
Jordan Thompson (+450) vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas (-650)
3 a.m. ET
If you watched any of the United Cup, or tuned in to watch his first-round match against Zizou Bergs, you'd know that Stefanos Tsitsipas isn't quite himself right now. A back injury forced him to end his season early just a couple of months ago, and while it's seemed to improve enough to the point where he can compete on the court, he's a very compromised player at the moment.
The serve is one of Tsitsipas' biggest weapons, yet his back injury has forced him to change up the delivery and move away from a platform serve. It's lost pace, and his play from the baseline has seemed to dip as well, leading me to believe he'll make a quick exit here at the Australian Open — something which he may have already accepted mentally given he knows he doesn't have his best stuff here in Melbourne.
Tsitsipas looked to be in trouble in the first round against a player outside of the top 100 in Bergs, someone who is error-prone and lacks fitness. His body quickly gave out and led to his demise, but even then he was still able to make in-roads on the Tsitsipas serve which is a huge cause for concern.
Meanwhile, even against a fully fit Tsitsipas, Thompson would have to like his chances here. He took him out in their most recent meeting, which came last year at Indian Wells, and even in his two defeats against the World No. 7 he played the Greek incredibly closely.
Thompson will be stepping onto a big court, under the lights, in front of a raucous pro-Aussie crowd. He's always seemed to have Tsitsipas' number, and against a compromised opponent with thousands of supporters behind him, I think he's going to have Tsitsipas on upset alert. The games here are a no-brainer, and I'd recommend throwing a little on the moneyline as well with how bad Tsitsipas looks. He's had incredibly shocking defeats early in Grand Slams over the years; this one would hardly be that surprising.
Picks: Thompson +4.5 games, Thompson ML (+450)
