The WTA Australian Open quarter-finals come to an end this Wednesday with the players from the bottom half of the draw fighting for a place in the following round. Bookmakers Review breaks down the fixtures below and lists the best available odds from green listed bookmakers.
Konta vs. Serena
Looking now at the matches scheduled for this Wednesday in Melbourne, the highlight clearly goes to the contest between Johanna Konta and Serena Williams.
Konta continues her brilliant run in 2017 with the British holding an outstanding 12 – 1 record this season. After reaching the semi-finals last year in Melbourne, Johanna is now just one win away from repeating that result. The British played at a very high level in the previous round against Ekaterina Makarova with a terrific 1.62 winners / unforced errors ratio.
At the age of 35, Serena is very close from matching Margaret Court’s record with 24 Grand Slam trophies. The American is the undeniable favourite to win the title in Melbourne however, she was far from consistent in the previous round against Barbora Strycova, especially on serve with only 45.00% first serves in.
Both players can serve at an outstanding level and it won’t be easy for any of them to break her opponent. As usual, Serena is the favourite to win at 29/50 at 5Dimes while Bet365 offers 81/50 for Konta’s victory. Even though we agree with Serena’s favouritism, this should be a very close contest. Therefore, the Over 21 at 81/100 at Pinnacle is clearly the best betting approach for this match.
Pliskova vs. Lucic-Baroni
It has been an impressive tournament for Mirjana Lucic-Baroni with the Croatian securing her first appearance in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam event since 1999. Playing as the underdog makes Lucic-Baroni even more dangerous with the former junior world no.2 defeating already Agnieszka Radwanska on this event by 6 – 3 6 – 2.
After reaching the 2016 US Open final, Karolina Pliskova is looking for another historical result in Melbourne. Known for her powerful serve, Karolina is firing an impressive average of 1.13 aces per service game on this event. However, the Czech only won 41.30% of the points played with her second serve throughout this competition.
Lucic-Baroni is far from an easy match-up for Pliskova with the Czech struggling against Mirjana’s powerful groundstrokes. The Croatian should create a lot of problems to Karolina’s second serve, which makes her the valuable player on this match at 7/2 at William Hill while Karolina is available at 1/4 at BetVictor. Having said that, we advise you to play the Over 21 at 89/100 at Pinnacle in a match where there isn’t much separating the two players.
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