Tennis Pick: Elena Rybakina ML (+108) at Bookmaker (visit our Bookmaker Review)
After 128 women began a quest to become the Australian Open champion, only two remain. Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka will meet tonight in the women’s final of the Australian Open held in Melbourne. Both players come into the match in excellent form and the WTA odds have this match close to even.
When two of the best players in the world take the court with a Grand Slam trophy on the line, who will be the winning tennis pick?
American fans of tennis looking to make a bet on the Australian Open Finals can do it at any of these top US betting sites.
Aryna Sabalenka vs. Elena Rybakina
Saturday, January 28, 2023 – 03:30 AM EST at Rod Laver Arena
Aryna Sabalenka
Aryna Sabalenka will be playing in her first Grand Slam final tonight. She was previously 0-3 in the Grand Slam semifinals until defeating Magda Linette this year 7-6, 6-2. This was a breakthrough for Sabalenka, but she still has one more match to go to reach her ultimate goal. The Belarusian player comes into this match as the number five seed, but after her success this fortnight, she will be rising even higher in the rankings.
The 24-year-old has been dominant on serve, holding at an impressive 88% rate of her service games this season. After having a career hold percent average of around 75%, this marks a significant uptick. The difference is her consistency. Before she was prone to double faults and giving away service games. Now she is doing a better job of getting the ball in play and not simply gifting breaks of serve to her opponents.
Sabalenka has yet to lose even a set in 2023. She started the season by winning the title in Adelaide. She became the third woman this century to start a season with 10 or more wins. However, it must be noted that she has faced an easy path to this point. In this tournament, she only faced two seeded players. Sabalenka defeated Elise Mertens in the third round and Belinda Bencic in the fourth round.
Aryna Sabalenka has made 19 finals in her career and is 11-8. At the high-stakes tournaments, she has performed well in the finals, going 4-1 in WTA 1000 finals. Tonight marks a great opportunity for Sabalenka to get the monkey off her back and finally win a Grand Slam title. This is the best form that she has displayed in her career but she faces a tough test against a player who has won a Grand Slam before.
Elena Rybakina
Elena Rybakina won Wimbledon in 2022. She is now looking for her second Grand Slam title. Because of controversy over Russian players being denied the opportunity to play in Wimbledon, the WTA and ATP refused to grant ranking points for any British tournaments last season. This caused Rybakina's ranking and seeding to be much lower than they should have been.
Rybakina defeated former world number one Victoria Azarenka 7-6, 6-3 in the semifinals. Azarenka is a seasoned veteran who was playing excellent tennis and for her to get the win in adverse conditions displays the excellent level the 23-year-old has played this fortnight.
Her serve has been strong and she has the most aces in the tournament so far, having struck 44 aces. She dialed up 9 aces in her semifinal win over Azarenka. Rybakina has beaten accomplished players on her path to the final and became the first woman to defeat three former Grand Slam champions at an Australian Open since Jennifer Capriati did it in 2001.
This is the first time that Rybakina has made it past the third round of the Australian Open. However, with the development in her game that she has displayed over the past year, it is not surprising that this year she was able to break through. Elena Rybakina has struggled in finals. She is 3-7 in WTA finals in her career. She has also only won one hard court title in her career when she won Hobart in 2020.
What Can We Expect Tonight?
Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka have played three times officially. All three matches were three-set affairs. However, Rybakina was able to defeat Sabalenka in December at the World Tennis League event. It was an odd match where Sabalenka won the first set 6-0, Rybakina won the second set 6-1, and then Rybakina prevailed in a 10-point tiebreak.
Although Sabalenka has the official 3-0 head-to-head, Rybakina will break through today and win her second Grand Slam title. Sabalenka has had problems with nerves in the past, and Rybakina’s steely determination will be a tough task for her to overcome. Rybakina shows little to no emotion on the court and will not be rattled if things start to go poorly. In contrast, Sabalenka has oftentimes seen to be flustered with her play and can get visibly agitated when she makes a spate of errors.
Both women have excellent serves and this could resemble an ATP match where breaks of service will be hard to come by. However, Elena Rybakina's ability to get big serve back in play could be the difference here. Aryna Sabalenka has struggled on the return of serve in her career and I believe that Rybakina has the stronger return game.
With the ability to put more pressure on her opponent's serve, Rybakina should be able to create more break-point opportunities, this will put pressure on Sabalenka. As we have seen in the past when you put pressure on Sabalenka her level of play can decline.
This is going to be a close, fun match between two women who deserve their chance to be at the top of the sport. However, it is Elena Rybakina's night to shine. Our bets for the day are Elena Rybakina ML and Elena Rybakina Over 8.5 aces.
Tennis Pick: Elena Rybakina ML (+108) at Bookmaker
Tennis Pick: Elena Rybakina Over 8.5 aces (+100) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
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