Tennis

2025-01-17 - Coco Gauff vs Leylah Fernandez

A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown

Coco Gauff vs Leylah Fernandez
Tennis: Australian Open Third Round
Friday 17th January 2025 - Scheduled 7pm
8am (British Time)

Preview

Both of these players are Seeded at the Australian Open and both are former US Open Finalists- the difference is that World Number 3 Coco Gauff was able to win the title in Flushing Meadows, while World Number 29 Leylah Fernandez came up short in 2021 against Emma Raducanu.

After reaching her career best World Ranking in August 2022 with all of the points picked up from that US Open run, Leylah Fernandez has slipped back to be in and around the top 30 mark.

There is plenty of potential still to fulfil for the 22 year old Canadian, but Fernandez will need to find more consistency if she is going to become a regular feature in the top 20 or even better.

The hard court numbers kind of back that up with Leylah Fernandez a solid, but unspectacular player on the surface. There has also been a clear split in her capabilities against players that are Ranked higher or lower than her with Leylah Fernandez 15-6 against those she is expected to beat, and 6-10 against those she is perhaps not.

Leylah Fernandez feels like a momentum player and four of those six wins against higher Ranked players have come in the same two tournaments. Confidence clearly improves after an upset and Fernandez can keep things going, but there have been a lot of losses to the top players on the Tour and that includes a relatively one-sided defeat to Coco Gauff at the United Cup in the warm up to the Australian Open.

The World Number 3 has been pretty comfortable in her opening two matches in Melbourne and at 20 years old Coco Gauff is one of the stars of the sport.

Five wins at the United Cup means Coco Gauff comes into this event as one of the favourites and she is still one of the top hard court players on the WTA Tour. Her numbers at this event have been solid, but there is still more to come from Coco Gauff and the feeling is that she is playing a little within herself to ensure there is plenty left in the tank at the business end of the event.

A match like this should inspire Coco Gauff to be closer to her best knowing the kind of challenges that Leylah Fernandez could present if the higher Ranked player is not quite as focused as she should be.

It is not much of a concern for that to happen and Coco Gauff might be the player who gets a few more cheaper points behind the serve, which will put her in a strong position to move through to the Fourth Round. The serve was the key to the win over the Canadian at the United Cup and there is marked difference between the returning numbers of the two players on this surface over the last twelve months.

Covering this spread will be tough, but Coco Gauff is capable of finding the breaks of serve to do that and she can be backed here.