Australian Open - Early View
With all the injury problems kicking about coming into the Aussie Open, there has to be a chance of picking out a decent value selection in the mens tournament for once, so we'll kick off with an early round of selections rather than waiting for the draw, which is our usual plan of attack.
Injury News
Andy Murray was our first big piece of news, when he flew home last week, clearly gutted to have been beaten by his hip injury which has kept him out for 6 months already. OUT
Rafael Nadal - World No.1 and will be coming to Melbourne with only exhibition tournaments under his belt. A knee injury forced his withdrawal from the ATP World Tour Finals, and he hasn't been back on the courts since.
Novak Djokovic - persistent elbow injury has sidelined him from the game for months now, and he withdrew from a planned exhibition recently, so has to be clouded in doubts about his ability to go deep into this event.
Stanislas Wawrinka - not played since Wimbledon, so can't have any real hopes this time out.
Kei Nishikori - withdrawn already.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga - less of a concern, but skipped Qatar Open due to wrist injury.
John Isner - pulled out of Auckland, but rumours suggest it might have been more about watching his local College american football team in the national finals.
Our picks and the stats
Taking the combined % of Service Points Won and % of Receiving Points Won can give a nice indication of a players likely success, and we've looked at how the top players have done on this metric on hard courts over the past year against both Top 50 players and Top 10 players. Here's what we found:
Roger Federer - 110.2% - 2/1
Rafael Nadal - 108.7% - 11/2
Novak Djokovic - 106.1% - 13/2
Nick Kyrgios - 105.8% - 20/1
Grigor Dimitrov - 105.6% - 10/1
Kevin Anderson - 103.8% - 66/1
Stan Wawrinka - 103.5% - 28/1
Milos Raonic - 103.5% - 40/1
David Goffin -101.2% - 20/1
Juan Martin Del Potro - 100.8% - 16/1
Alexander Zverev - 100.6% - 11/1
Dominic Thiem - 100.3% - 28/1
Marin Cilic - 97.6% - 33/1
Jack Sock - 96.9% - 66/1
For the options, the first play has to be a man who freely admits that he's "not dedicated to tennis, not like the others at the top". The controversial Nick Kyrgios has just taken down Brisbane, beating Grigor Dimitrov along the way, and with a home crowd behind him, this could finally be the time for Kyrgios to emerge and justify the enormous talents he has. It would be a shame if he were to never capitalise on what he is clearly capable of achieving. At 20/1 he looks decent value with Winner.com and is also on offer at 16/1 with several firms.
It could also be worth backing Milos Raonic who is well priced at 40/1. He's had his fair share of problems in the last 12 months, but looks to have put them behind him now, and certainly has the game to trouble most opponents. He's reached the QFs here twice, and the semi-finals once, each in the last three renewals, so this has to be his opportunity.
We are likely to lead out with Roger Federer in our main preview, with both Nadal and Djokovic struggling, but we'll wait on that until all the warm ups are done and we know what the draw is doing.
1pt e/w Nick Kyrgios at 16/1
1pt e/w Milos Raonic at 40/1