2022 Australian Open Overview
The 2022 tennis season has already begun, but for many, it won’t start until Monday, January 17, with the first round of the 2022 Australian Open. As the first Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year, the Australian Open will welcome back some of the best men and women tennis players in the world, who will compete on the Australian clay for the coveted Grand Slam title.
Novak Djokovic is the defending champion on the men’s half, while in the women’s half, it’s Naomi Osaka, who won her first Australian Open in 2019 and will seek her third title this month. As always, the defending champions are expected to show up, but if the last season and the lead-up to the 2022 Australian Open have taught us anything, we should expect the unexpected.
Previous Australian Open Champions
Men:
2021 – Novak Djokovic
2020 – Novak Djokovic
2019 – Novak Djokovic
2018 – Roger Federer
2017 – Roger Federer
Women:
2021 – Naomi Osaka
2020 – Sofia Kenin
2019 – Naomi Osaka
2018 – Caroline Wozniacki
2017 – Serena Williams
2022 Australian Open Information
The 2022 Australian Open will run from January 17-30 at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It will mark the 110th edition of the tennis tournament and the 54th of the Open Era.
2022 Australian Open Betting Analyisis
Men’s Singles
We’re less than a week away from the 2022 Australian Open, and yet we have no answer of whether the defending champion, Djokovic, will attend the event. And based on the recent events – where the Serbian tennis star admitted to providing false information – the situation is still far from solved.
But, until proven otherwise, Djokovic is expected to step on the Australian tennis courts, where he will chase his 10th Australian Open and 21st Grand Slam title. Having won all of the previous three iterations, Djokovic is undeniably the most successful tennis player of the tournament, so it comes as no surprise that he is priced as the favorite to do it again.
Still, with the uncertainty of his participation, in combination with Djokovic’s rather underwhelming finish to the 2021 season, he might not be the smartest bet for the first Grand Slam of the 2022 season.
Entering the tournament as the second favorite to win the 2022 Australian Open is the current no.2, Daniil Medvedev, expected to be a threat to Djokovic’s road to glory. Admittedly, Medvedev has achieved less than the Serbian last season but won their most important meeting in the U.S. Open finals, where he denied Djokovic a complete set of Grand Slams.
Beyond that, the Russian has also made it to the finals of the ATP Cup, where he had to admit defeat to Alexander Zverev. The latter enters the 2022 Australian Open as the third favorite on the outright betting markets.
As the least likely to win the Grand Slam of the three main favorites, the German tennis star is coming off the best year of his career. Last year he reached R4 in Wimbledon, two semi-finals (the United States and France), and quarter-finals in Australia, where he lost to Djokovic in four sets.
Although it’s hard to make a solid case for Zverev to win the whole thing, he is definitely a man to watch.
Women’s Singles
On the women’s side, the home crowd favorite, Ashleigh Barty, enters the 2022 Australian Open as the main favorite, followed by the defending champion Naomi Osaka, and Garbine Muguruza, who is priced as high as +1000 on the sports betting sites.
If the outright betting odds are to be trusted, there is a very good chance that Barty finally wins her home Grand Slam and break a streak of three playoff exits, which saw her crash out of the Australian Open in QF (2019, 2021) and semi-finals (2020).
Barty is coming off an Adelaide International win; however, she did not attend the Sydney Tennis Classic, which might concern some. But there is no reason for that since Barty stated that she made changes to her schedule solely to focus on the Australian Open.
If she can pull it off, Barty would finally win the title that has been eluding her for the past three years and add her third Grand Slam title to her resume. In 2021, Barty won in Wimbledon, made QF in Australia, but was largely disappointing in France (R2) and the United States (R3). Nevertheless, it’s no secret that she is at her best on the Australian clay.
To no one’s surprise, Naomi Osaka is priced well below Barty to win the 2022 Australian Open, even though she lifted the trophy at this time of the year in 2021. But there’s a good reason for that.
The Japanese-American tennis superstar is coming off a very turbulent season, having failed to achieve much since her Australian Open title run. She exited the French Open in R2, did not attend the Wimbledon, and could only manage to reach the third round in the U.S. Open.
She might be a two-time Australian Open champion, but her 2021 form would leave anyone guessing what can Osaka achieve in 2022.
2022 Australian Open Betting Prediction
It’s never easy to predict the Australian Open winner, and it doesn’t help that we can’t be sure how the situation with Djokovic will play out. Nevertheless, even if the Serbian ends up playing, he is hardly worth a bet at the offered betting odds.
Medvedev’s improvement last season was phenomenal, and if he can continue on this path, it’s more than fair to say that he will end up at the top of the ATP rankings list by the end of the year. That’s not to say that Djokovic is now a second-grade player, far from it.
He is still the undisputed best tennis player in the world, and we wouldn’t be shocked if he ends up winning at least a couple of Grand Slam tennis tournaments, but in regards to the 2022 Australian Open, he might not be the smartest bet.
Beyond the uncertainty of his appearance, Djokovic has also had relatively little preparation time for the tournament and is likely going to face a tough crowd, who won’t be too happy with him playing, considering the general public has had to follow struct COVID rules for the past two years.
On the women’s side, Ashleigh Barty is the only player you could feel confident in. Osaka is the defending champion and has had a solid start to the 2021 season, but the issues she was dealing with in the latter part of the year suggest he might not be at her best next week.
Who To Bet On 2022 Australian Open
Most sportsbooks have Daniil Medvedev priced as the second favorite to win the 2022 Australian Open at just under +200, while Ashleigh Barty sits at the top of the outright betting markets for women’s side, at around +275.
Both are considered as one of the favorites on their respective grounds, and for a good reason. Even though neither has yet to win the Australian Open, the current circumstances provide a perfect opportunity for us to see two new Australian Open at the end of January. So, we do not have any reason to take this tennis betting pick.
Prediction: Daniil Medvedev to win
Prediction: Ashleigh Barty to win
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