Tennis
2019-01-22 - Francis Tiafoe vs Rafael Nadal
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Tennis: Australian Open Quarter Final
Tuesday 22nd January 2018 - Scheduled 8:30pm
British Time: 9:30am
Preview
The headlines might have been taken by Stefanos Tsitsipas in his win over Roger Federer, but another very young and talented player from the ATP Tour made his first big impact at a Grand Slam event. While the Greek player is still 20 years old, Francis Tiafoe was beating Grigor Dimitrov on the day of his 21st birthday to make it through to his first Grand Slam Quarter Final.
It was clearly an emotional moment for the American who had not shown much form going into the Australian Open to think this run was about to happen. Beating Kevin Anderson and Dimitrov will have given Tiafoe a lot of belief that is he is going to be able to compete with the best players on the Tour, but in this Quarter Final Tiafoe is facing one of the very best.
Rafael Nadal might have had some fitness concerns coming into the Australian Open, but those have not really been evident as he has breezed through four Rounds at the tournament. The crushing wins over Alex de Minaur and Tomas Berdych in the last couple of Rounds have been very impressive and Nadal is a big favourite to reach the Final when you think of the four names left in the bottom half of the draw.
If you think Nadal is going to have that in his mind you have another think coming because the Spaniard has based his career on making sure he works for every point and treats every point like it is the last he is going to play.
You always have to expect young players are going to show improvement, but Tiafoe's service numbers have been considerably higher than 2018. It is a small sample though so I am expecting to get a much better idea as to where his serving is when he faces Nadal who has broken opponents 41.2% of the time in this tournament as he has comfortably move through the draw.
The change in the service action has also reaped rewards during the Australian Open and Nadal has only been broken twice in the tournament. Both of those breaks came in the opening match and he has held serve 96.2% of the time in this event which should mean he is going to exert plenty of pressure on Tiafoe throughout this match.
Francis Tiafoe is going to have to improve his return if he is going to offer some sort of resistance to Nadal and this will have to be a day when he produces his very best serving. Picking himself up from an emotional win just two days ago is going to be very tough and his overall numbers against top 10 Ranked opponents on the hard courts have shown there is still plenty of room for improvement for Tiafoe.
I don't think it will all go Nadal's way with Tiafoe plenty talented to at least give the veteran something to think about, but I think this match is going to see Nadal eventually start wearing down an opponent and pulling away for a good looking win and a place in the Semi Final.
Prediction
Lay the games with the favourite.
The Pick :
Francis Tiafoe 0-3 Rafael Nadal
BEST BETTING TIP :
I'll back Rafael Nadal - 8.5 Games at 2.00 with BetFred
