The Australian Open futures market has Federer as the favorite but his recent play suggests betting against him.
Roger Federer, the favorite to win the Australian Open, has too many believers out there. While there are some lines that have Nadal as the favorite, for the most part it is Roger Federer that's considered the top pick for the Australian Open this year.
It's not hard to understand why that is the case as Federer is considered the best male tennis player ever and he has won the Australian Open 3 times before, with all of the victories coming in the last 6 years.
His current price, with Sportingbet for example, is +300 (3/1) to win the Aussie, odds that have an implied probability of 25% and that seem reasonable given that Federer has won 50% of the Australian Opens since 2004.
However past history at the Australian Open isn't the right thing to look at in this case: Federer's recent history on tour is what should be examined.
Federer has set several bad precedents since winning his last title in Cincinnati back in August. Specifically, Federer lost the US Open for the first time since 2003 and he failed to defend his ATP Basel title for the first time in a few years as well.
In head to head matches, Federer has lost to players in the last 6 months that he's never lost to before.
Juan Martin Del Potro earned a first time victory over Federer in the US Open 2009 final, with an encore victory at the ATP World Tour Championships.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, you may recall, took Federer out of the Roger's Cup tournament in Canada during the summer hard court season as well.
Julien Benneteau scored a win over Federer at the Paris Masters and Nikolay Davydenko, at the World Championships, finally won a match point over Fed (with an encore earlier this year).
Nobody, not even Federer, can beat Robin Soderling 13 times in a row as he finally won a match over the Swiss Maestro, although that was exhibition play.
Federer's odds have stayed on top of the leader's board but there are a lot more players in the field at the Australian Open that can beat the Swiss Maestro now and that makes +300, for Federer to win the title, highly questionable.
Djokovic has drifted out to +700 (7/1) with Sportingbet and that is my recommendation instead.
