Betting tips / Ben Caudell / 18 January 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

Nicolas Almagro fans won't be happy when they hear what Ben Caudell's stats reveal going into Day Three of the Australian Open.

Five Reasons to back Grigor Dimitrov @[2.50] to defeat Nicolas Almagro

•Twenty year old Bulgarian Dimitrov will be hoping that 2012 will become a breakthrough twelve months and the year he finally lives up to his reputation as the new Roger Federer. The start of 2012 has begun well with a straight sets win over Mardy Fish 6-2 6-1 in the Hopman Cup and a narrow defeat to Tomas Berdych in three sets at the same event. The Bulgarian has also showed us a bit of grit and determination (which he not usually associated with), as he came through a tough five-setter in the first round of the Australian Open against Jeremy Chardy.

•Dimitrov, who turned pro in 2008 and is ranked sixty six places below Almagro at seventy six in the world, surprisingly holds a superior surface rating, predicted chance of winning (65%) and match rating (Match Ratings assess form specific to the current tournament conditions and the opposing player).

•The 6ft 2" right-hander has won five of his last six matches in Melbourne, four of his last five overall and four of five in Australia. Moreover, his Spanish opponent has lost four of his last five when priced as a 'regular' favourite (1.50 - 1.99)

•Since the US Open last year where the tenth seeded Spaniard lost in the first round to Julian Benneteau, Almagro has won only five hard-courts matches and has lost seven. Of those five match wins, none were ranked in the top 50. Furthermore the Spanish number three has an extremely poor record against top 100 ranked players on hard-courts, since January 2000, and he has won just 47.8%.


Four Reasons to back Iveta Benesova @ [3.45] to defeat Shuai Peng

•Czech starlet Benesova comes into today's match with an all important 2-0 head-to-head lead over her Chinese opponent (French Open 2008, Stanford 2005). Both were won in straight sets.

•The left-hander's recent form coming into this second round tie has looked decent; she holds wins over the likes of Samantha Stosur, Lucie Safarova and Dominika Cibulkova, all on hard-courts.

The twenty eight year-old reached the fourth round in Melbourne last year, defeating three players above her in the WTA rankings and two seeded players: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Maria Kirilenko.

•Benesova has won four of her last five at the Australian Open, four in a row against big servers and 60% of her last ten matches played on hard-courts. Peng has won only 50% of her last ten matches on hard and only once before has she made it past the second round stage at this event.