Day eight Australian Open tennis picks, odds and best bets

On By Littum

Yes, we are already through 7 days of competition at the first Grand Slam of the tennis season. Now it’s time for week 2 at the Australian Open, with fourth-round action getting underway on Sunday. Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff are among those taking the court.

Let’s take a look at the best bets that can be made on the Day 8 schedule.

Parlay: Carlos Alcaraz -1.5 sets over Jack Draper and Alexander Zverev -1.5 sets over Ugo Humbert (-121)

Each of these 2 underdogs – each a left-hander – can be dangerous. But for different reasons, they are both very unfavorable places on Sundays. Draper has a particularly daunting task ahead of him. The oft-injured Brit has played 3 consecutive 5-set matches, including 2 particularly grueling tests in the last 2 rounds against Thanasi Kokkinakis and Aleksandar Vukic. Draper needs to be 100 percent to even think about competing with Alcaraz, and it’s unlikely he’ll be close to his peak. The scenes are almost as bleak for Humbert. He just met Zverev in the Paris final last fall and was blown out 6-2, 6-2. To add insult to injury (or vice versa), the Frenchman took a medical timeout for a shoulder problem in his last match against Arthur Fils.

Parlay: Novak Djokovic ML over Jiri Lehecka and Tommy Paul ML over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (-147)

Djokovic was not a big enough favorite against Tomas Machac in the third round. Unsurprisingly, the 37-year-old raised his level as he moved deeper into a Grand Slam, destroying Machac in straight sets. Despite that result, the market has not adjusted at all and Djokovic is once again missing a favorite against another Czech opponent. Lehecka is talented, but he has never really tested the best players in the world. Meanwhile, Paul couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to get back to the Aussie Open quarter-finals. The American sweeps Davidovich Fokina 3-0 in their head-to-head series, including a win at Melbourne Park. Also, ADF is coming off back-to-back five-setters – one of which is the longest match of the tournament so far against Felix Auger-Aliassime (four hours and 51 minutes).

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova +1.5 games over Donna Vekic (-110)

The sample size is small, but Pavlyuchenkova has had such lopsided success against Vekic that it must be considered significant. The Russian rolled 6-1, 6-1 in Tokyo at the end of the 2023 season, and they also met last year at the same Aussie Open, where she cruised 6-4, 6-4. It’s hard to see Vekic turning the tide as the Swiss was red-hot in 2024 but appears to have cooled off considerably. She is just 3-3 since the calendar change and is coming off back-to-back three-setters. A well-rested Pavlyuchenkova, on the other hand, cruised through the first week of this tournament for the most part.