The Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne will heat up with the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, with three Americans included on this round looking for a place in the semifinals, but that won’t go as easy as expected. None of the three US players still alive are the betting favorite in the latest Australian Open odds.
Ashleigh Barty remains the odds-on favorite at legal Canadian and US sportsbooks to win it all. She’s also sportsbooks’ biggest liability, so oddsmakers will likely be rooting for the competition as the matches begin.
Updated Australian Open odds for women’s singles quarterfinals
In the first match, Madison Keys (26 years old from Rock Island, Illinois) will go head-to-head with Czech Barbora Krejcikova. Krejcikova is one of the key names in the doubles game, winning three Grand Slams and ending 2018 No. 1 in the WTA Ranking.
She’s slowly moved her career to singles, winning last year’s Roland Garros and finishing fifth in the 2021 WTA singles ranking. She never went past the second round in the Australian Open in singles, and never won it in doubles, so she surely will try to break that spell.
Meanwhile, Keys, who ended 2021 56th in the ranking, will try to repeat her 2015 performance in Australia. Then, she went as far as the semifinals. She definitely has a preference for this surface, winning 71% of the matches she played on this tournament.
It’s a tough one to predict. Keys has a respectable 48% win rate against top 10 oposition and Krejcikova has only won 50% of her singles matches in the Australian Open against the previously mentioned 71% by the American despite her lower ranking. Keys might pull off a surprise on this one.
Favorite Barty faces off against Pegula
The second match will be local Barty against Jessica Pegula. The Queensland-born is the clear favorite for this one, being the top seed and No. 1 in the WTA ranking since 2019 but yet to win the biggest title at home. Through 2019 she had advanced past the third round. She then qualified for a semifinal in 2020 and she’ll try to repeat that feat against the American.
The 26-year-old from Buffalo is repeating her performance at Rod Laver last year, getting as far as the quarterfinals. In fact, she has performed better at the Australian Open than any other Grand Slam leg better (67% win rate, only one above 50%). In all the other big tournaments she never made it past the third round, showing how more comfortable she is on this surface.
The head-to-head goes to Barty, with a win at Roland Garros 6-3, 6-3. Barty is the clear favorite, but if you wanna bet on an unlikely surprise, this might be the match you go for.
Collins vs. Cornet to fill out the bracket
Danielle Collins, the 27th seed, will face Alize Cornet in the third match of the quarterfinals. The player from Florida is enjoying her best form, with a career-high ranking in 2021 of 29th. However, her best years in Grand Slams have come in 2019 and 2020, which she will try to repeat by reaching the semifinals again.
In fact, similar to Pegula, she boasts a respectable 70% win in this tournament. That surely will make things difficult for the French Cornet. The 32-year-old from Nice never achieved this high of a result in a Grand Slam in her career, going to the fourth round in Melbourne once in 2009. This might be a more easy one to predict, with Collins the clear favorite, even if there’s no head-to-head between them.
Finally, in another first-time meeting, the seventh seed Iga Swiatek faces Estonian Kaia Kanepi. Kanepi, at 36, has a similar trayectory as Cornet, without a single quarterfinal match in the Australian Open on her record. Her best result in Australia has been reaching the third round three times.
She qualified for the semifinals in other tournaments (Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open) but the Australian carries her worst win rate with 45%. The young Swiatek will try to keep going towards her second Grand win, despite this being her first appearance in an Australian quarterfinal. However, her pedigree and the fact she’s ninth in the world ranking make her the clear favorite for this one.
