The first two days of main draw action in Indian Wells has been incredible, and the action continues with plenty more fascinating matchups on Friday.
Two matches have emerged with serious value on the day, providing us a good opportunity for success.
Here are two bets to consider from Friday's slate of matches.
Match times are subject to change. Read here for advice on watching tennis matches.
Caroline Garcia (-110) vs Emma Raducanu (-110)
4 p.m. ET
Caroline Garcia has played high-quality tennis in recent weeks. She made the semifinals of Lyon, beating impressive indoor players such as Camila Giorgi and Alison Van Uytvanck. Then, this week, Garcia came back from a break down in the third set to take down Dayana Yastremska in the first round.
Against Yastremska, Garcia won 75% of her first-serve points and saved eight-of-ten break points. In the crucial third set, Garcia won 70% of her service points, including 78% of her first serves.
Garcia has finally reined in her groundstrokes and is starting to show glimpses of the player who made the quarterfinals of the 2017 French Open. She's trying to get in the first strike during rallies, but has increased her level of patience, which wasn't the case when she was struggling.
Emma Raducanu is 1-3 on the season. The Brit hasn't played much, and when she has, she hasn't had much success. In her latest match, in Guadalajara against Daria Saville, Raducanu retired in the third set after nearly 3.5 hours of play with an injury.
Raducanu's serve let her down in the match with Saville. She won just 35% of the points on her second serve and was broken five times. Overall, Raducanu faced 21 break points over the course of the match.
Shes showed what she is capable of with her run to the US Open title late last season. When she's playing well, she's a clean ball striker, can hit into small targets, and can control the baseline. However, Raducanu is only 3-6 since that US Open final and hasn't shown the controlled aggression she had in that tournament.
While I'm sure Garcia would prefer faster courts, she did just fine with the slow court conditions against Yastremska and has the advantage of being acclimated to the court conditions. And, while Raducanu's injury against Saville didn't look serious, she's still struggling to find her game
Raducanu also won't be used to the conditions. In last year's October edition of Indian Wells, Raducanu struggled in a straight sets loss to Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
As crazy as this might have sounded a few months ago, I trust Garcia's serve and baseline game more than Raducanu's right now.
Pick: Garcia ML (-110 via PointsBet)
Alize Cornet (-130) vs Anna Kalinskaya (+108)
5 p.m. ET
Alize Cornet had a strong start to the 2022 season, making the Australian Open quarterfinals before losing to Danielle Collins. However, including the Collins loss, Cornet has lost four of her last five matches. Most recently, she fell in three sets to Cristina Bucsa in Lyon.
Cornet struggled with her serve in that match, only winning 50% of her service points. In addition, the Frenchwoman was broken six times during the match.
Cornet seemed to struggle a bit in the quicker conditions in Lyon. However, in Indian Wells, Cornet will certainly have more time to set up on her groundstrokes. Cornet's foot speed and anticipation are some of the best in women's tennis and it will be very hard to hit through her in these conditions.
Anna Kalinskaya lost to Qiang Wang in the final qualifying round, but made it into the main draw as a lucky loser. In the main draw, Harmony Tan retired in the second set of her first round match with Kalinskaya up a set and a break.
Kalinskaya won 70% of her service points and only faced one break point, which she saved. In addition, Tan only won 36% of the points on her second serve.
Kalinskaya hits a flatter ball, which isn't best for the Indian Wells conditions. The Russian is streaky, with stretches where she's dominating from the baseline and other patches of play where she's spraying unforced errors.
This is a bad matchup for Kalinskaya. Cornet is going to be able to get a ton of balls back and I don't think Kalinskaya has the rally tolerance to consistently hit the combination of shots necessary to hit through Cornet.
Cornet will be able to hang in rallies staying steady on the forehand and waiting for her opportunity to strike on her backhand, which will be the best shot on the court in this match.
She should be a bigger favorite and I really like her to win this match.
Pick: Cornet ML (-130 via FanDuel)
