Tennis
2020-01-21 - Adrian Mannarino vs Dominic Thiem
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Australia: Australian Open Tennis First Round
Tuesday 21st January 2020 - Scheduled 12:30pm
1:30am (British Time)
Preview
The best chance for Dominic Thiem to win a Grand Slam is likely to come at the French Open in the next few years as Rafael Nadal perhaps begin to slip back towards the pack, but the Austrian is someone who can play some very effective hard court tennis too. Unfortunately for Thiem there seem to be one too many players in the Grand Slam events in Melbourne and New York City to prevent him from having the impact you may expect out of the World Number 5.
He has only ever reached one Quarter Final at either the Australian Open or the US Open and Dominic Thiem's best efforts in Melbourne have been a couple of Fourth Round runs here.
The early season results at the ATP Cup might not have been the best for Dominic Thiem, but he played well in the three matches there and was very unfortunate to end with a 1-2 record. The serve has been effective on the hard courts in the last couple of years for Thiem and he looked to be in decent shape with his return at the ATP Cup, although in general it is the part of the game that has prevented Thiem from taking the next step at this level on this surface.
The opening match at the Australian Open looks a good one for Dominic Thiem who has won all seven previous matches against Adrian Mannarino. The Frenchman is clearly looking like a player on the way down from the top of the mountain of his carer and Mannarino was beaten in both matches played in the 2020 season in Doha and Auckland.
Adrian Mannarino did have some strong showings at the back end of the 2019 season which improved his numbers, but his serve can be a weakness even coming out of the southpaw stance. He held 79% of his service games on the hard courts, but that drops to 71% when playing opponents Ranked inside the top 20 in the World Rankings.
In those matches Mannarino has struggled with his return too and that has been a major problem in his previous matches against Dominic Thiem having broken in just 13% of return games played. Adrian Mannarino has won 59% of points played behind serve in those matches against the Austrian and two years ago Dominic Thiem was a very comfortable straight sets winner over Mannarino.
Dominic Thiem has won eleven sets in a row against Adrian Mannarino on the hard courts and I do think he is worth playing here to cover this spread.
Prediction
Lay the games with the favourite.
The Pick :
Adrian Mannarino 0-3 Dominic Thiem
FIXED ODDS BETTING TIP :
I'll back Dominic Thiem - 7.5 Games @ 2.10 with BetFred
