Australian Open
With Novak Djokovic putting fifth-seed Andrey Rublev to the sword in a straight-set smashing in well under three hours, the Serbian maestro has sured up his position as favourite to claim a historic 10th Australian Open title.
With a return to the #1 ranking well and truly in his sights, Djokovic has been making up for lost time on Melbourne Park in 2023, dropping just one set across his run to the semi-finals.
Djokovic has now won a record 26 games in a row at the Australian Open, a run that stretches all the way back to 2019.
As he raced to another straight-set win on Thursday night, Djokovic’s odds in the Australian Open Men’s Winner market dropped to 1.24, clearly ahead of next favourite Stefanos Tstispas, who sits at 4.40 on Victorian Bookmakers Association member bookie, BetBetBet.
Tsitsipas, who is something of a favourite at Melbourne Park given the Victorian capital’s huge Greek population, is still in with a great chance of making something special happen this year, but he will first need to overcome the challenge of K Khachanov on Friday.
With a break in play today (Thursday), the two semi-finals will take place on Friday ahead of Sunday’s big final.
Djokovic will take on American T Paul in the other semi-final.
A final between the third and fourth seeds seems the most likely outcome from Friday’s games, but both Paul and Khachanov will fight tooth and nail to stop that from happening.
Djokovic has the advantage of having spent significantly less time on the court than his American opponent, coming in at just over 12 hours on court across five games.
Paul, on the other hand, has been on court for over 14 hours, inclding a mammoth near-four hour contest in Round Two.
Tsitispas has spent under 12 hours on court, a number that seems even more remarkable when one considers that four of those hours came in his Round 4, five-set epic against J Sinner.
However, Tsitipas has also played two Doubles games, being knocked out in Round Two of the Doubles tournament.
In the Women’s Singles, Elena Rybakina and Victoria Azarenka face off in the first semi-final, whilst Aryna Sabalenka faces Magda Linette in the second semi.
Sabalenka is the only top-10 woman left in the tournament in what has been an Australian Open schedule full of shocks and upsets.
Over at BetBetBet, she edges Rybakina as the favourite, with odds of 2.20 compared to the Russian’s odds of 2.50.
Azarenka has enjoyed something of a renaissance over the course of the tournament, and despite remaining an outsider with the bookies, she remains in the hunt for what would be her third Australian Open triumph and first since 2013.