Betting against Safina had value at the end of last season.
Dinara Safina's first round match at the 2010 Australian Open is against Magdalena Rybarikova, the 44th ranked player in the world. Safina, ranked 2nd in the world, was struggling on tour in the late parts of 2009 and betting against her might be valuable.
Examining this match and the odds is the first step toward making a smart bet.
Safina and Rybarikova have only gone head to head one time and that was back at the 2008 French Open where Safina won 6-0, 6-1. With that result on clay and with Rybarikova being a different player at that time in her career, the limited head to head history between these two players is not all that insightful.
But Rybarikova's odds to win her match against Safina may have been left too long with Paddy Power.
If you look at Coral and Ladbrokes for example, you find respective odds of +333 (about 33/10) and +275 (11/4) for Rybarikova to beat Safina. However, with Paddy Power the odds are out at +450 (9/2) and you don't see that kind of variance between sportsbooks all that often.
Rybarikova has top 25 potential and at 21 years of age she is in her tennis prime. She picked up her first tour title last year (Birmingham, grass) and did well during the hard court season in general, winning multiple matches in the main draws of New Haven, Seoul, Tokyo, and the US Open.
Safina is under a lot of pressure in Melbourne and not just for the tour points. She's lost a lot of credibility as a Slam threat with tennis bettors as she has struggled with confidence and form.
While Safina outranks Rybarikova easily, Dinara had been dropping matches to low ranks near the end of 2009. Notably Shuai Zhang, ranked 226th at the time, defeated Safina in Beijing in October and Kai-Chen Chang, ranked 132nd at the time, beat Safina a week or so before that.
Rybarikova, in terms of true odds, might be more like a +250 (5/2) underdog here so at +450 (9/2) with Paddy Power you really have to seize this opportunity.
Go to Paddy Power to bet on the Australian Open.
