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tennis | Wednesday, January 31, 2024 8:45 AM
Tennis Picks Today for January 31st: Free Tennis Picks for Alexandrova vs Niemeier and Mayot vs Paire
Jon Reid
2
Tennis Picks Today: January 31st
- Alexandrova vs Niemeier: Niemeier to win
- Mayot vs Paire: Paire to win
After a love Monday cashing in on a few underdogs, Tuesday saw us drop our wagers backing another pair of underdogs.
The two days did balance each other out though, so no harm, no foul to start the week. For Wednesday, we have one preview from the Upper Austria Ladies Linz on the WTA side of things, as well as one ATP preview from the Open Sud de France.
Let’s dig into Ekaterina Alexandrova vs Jule Niemeier and Harold Mayot vs Benoit Paire.
For more daily tennis tips, visit the bettingexpert community, but if you want more expert tips from Jon Reid, visit our Expert Insights section.
In this article:
- Ekaterina Alexandrova vs Jule Niemeier Expert Tip
- Ekaterina Alexandrova Recent Form
- Jule Niemeier Recent Form
- Ekaterina Alexandrova vs Jule Niemeier H2H Stat of the Match
- Harold Mayot vs Benoit Paire Expert Tip
- Harold Mayot Recent Form
- Benoit Paire Recent Form
- Harold Mayot vs Benoit Paire H2H Stat of the Match
- Safer Gambling
Ekaterina Alexandrova vs Jule Niemeier (Upper Austria Ladies Linz) Free Pick: Surging Niemeier One to Watch in Linz
- Pick: Niemeier to win
- Best Odds: 3.30
- Bookmaker: Unibet
- Stakes: 2/10
Odds as at 1:30 am UK Time on January 31st, 2024. Odds may now differ.
Niemeier’s form had been wretched for quite some time, but she’s finding the range this week, with some strong play in Austria.
She has the power on serve and her groundstrokes to exploit the conditions and reduce her error count by keeping points shorter, and she’s also playing someone who has been volatile point-to-point so far in 2024 herself.
I can understand why the market has made Alexandrova a big favourite based almost solely on the last year for her German counterpart, but I do think she is far from perfect herself and this one should be a bit closer than the odds imply.
Read on for more Expert Insights.
Ekaterina Alexandrova Recent Form
It’s been an up-and-down start to the season for the 29-year-old, who has struggled to really find easy wins.
In fact, if we look at her results compared to her market prices, she’s been a big underperformer so far this season. She lost her first matches in both Brisbane and the Australian Open (as a large favourite in each of those matches), and then struggled past Magda Linette in her first match in Adelaide.
It’s odd that her other two wins were as an underdog, but I have to wonder how locked in Elena Rybakina was for that match in Adelaide coming off a dominant title and looking ahead at the year’s first major tournament.
Alexandrova plays a high-octane offensive game style, but that also comes with very little margin for error. She can bully the ball in baseline exchanges, but when she loses the plot, the mistakes come thick and fast.
The serve is also somewhat of a concern. Relative to the power she produces from the baseline, her serve doesn’t look nearly as intimidating, and the numbers back it up.
She’s won fewer than 70% of points behind her first serve this season, held her serve under 70% of the time and her second delivery has been crushed to this point by her opposition.
There’s plenty to like in Alexandrova’s game, but it’s far from perfect and against a big hitter in pretty quick conditions, I’m going to take a shot betting against her here.
Jule Niemeier Recent Form
If there was a player in women’s tennis that could’ve used a big week at the 500 level coming in, it’s Niemeier.
The German picked up her first WTA main draw win since August on Tuesday in Linz.
Just her qualifying run and opening round victory have propelled her 20 spots in the provisional rankings up to 139th, and the conditions should provide her with a good chance to up that ranking even more (just one more win here will help another jump another ten spots in the live rankings).
Entering the week, Niemeier had been struggling to hit four or five forehands in a row without sailing one or the ball ending up in the net.
This week has seen her improve in that regard, and also help her keep points shorter thanks to the quicker surface, minimising her chances to make mistakes.
Niemeier doesn’t just have three wins now in Linz, she has three straight sets wins, all coming as the underdog and having an average margin of victory of six games. That’s an impressive week, and against someone whose proven she is vulnerable so far in 2024, I’m happy to back that form again on Wednesday.
Ekaterina Alexandrova vs Jule Niemeier H2H – Stat of the Match
No prior meetings between these two.
I’m looking at first serve points won as a key metric in this contest.
Not only has Niemeier looked really strong behind her serve to this point this week, but she’s also playing against someone who doesn’t exactly take her foot off the gas much. That could lead to overhitting against some fast serves and even more cheap points for the German.
Conversely, Alexandrova’s serve is a bit easier to start points against, and if Niemeier can avoid going too big in her own right on return, she could really find herself winning a much higher percentage of first serve points in the match, giving her the potential edge she needs to pull off the upset.
Harold Mayot vs Benoit Paire (Open Sud de France) Free Pick: Going Back to the Well with French Veteran
- Pick: Paire to win
- Best Odds: 2.65
- Bookmaker: Pinnacle
- Stakes: 3/10
Odds as at 1:30 am UK Time on January 31st, 2024. Odds may now differ.
The crowd was behind him in a big way Monday, and while I don’t tend to take that into account all that much for the vast majority of players, Paire is certainly an emotional person on court, and that support is sure to uplift him. Put another way, when down 2-6 in a match, Paire is often one to pack it in and head to his next event.
With his serve, backhand and plenty of motivation, I’m happy to back Paire again on Wednesday.
Read on for more Expert Insights.
Harold Mayot Recent Form
The younger of the two Frenchmen is certainly starting to make a name for himself, with a career high ranking of 144 at the moment and a trajectory that is headed in the right direction.
The 2020 Australian Open boys champion has always had promise, and he’s beginning to show that at the professional level.
With that said, I’m not exactly sure he’s earned the right to be a fairly clear favourite against a veteran of the tour who is likely to have as much, if not more, crowd support on the day. Mayot has a pretty strong game, but his serve has let up quite a bit in recent weeks.
He’s found his way through a few matches victoriously against the likes of Gabriel Diallo last week and Lucas Pouille this week, but he’s faced at least 10 break points in each of his last three matches and really struggled to find clean holds of serve last week against Duje Ajdukovic.
Paire may not be at his peak at the moment, but he’s certainly as good, if not better, than the Challenger Tour competition that Mayot has been beating by slim margins in recent matches.
He’s undoubtedly got a bright future, but at the moment, he hasn’t earned the respect the market is showing him.
Benoit Paire Recent Form
It’s been another hot-and-cold start to the year for Paire, who has looked good in spurts, but ultimately had lost four straight matches entering this week.
Granted, half of those losses were to players that ended up winning the event that week and another was in three sets, but the veteran appeared he was on another losing spiral that we’re so used to seeing.
His match against fellow veteran Andy Murray was inspiring in a way, however. After being down 2-6 after the first set, I think most of the tennis world was prepared for another lopsided set in the second. The fight Paire displayed and his ability not just to find points behind his serve and play solid tennis on the backhand wing, but also hit some strong forehands along the way – normally a glaring hole in his game.
With a return to the top-100 on the horizon should he win on Wednesday, I’m looking forward to seeing another inspired performance from the native of Avignon.
Harold Mayot vs Benoit Paire H2H – Stat of the Match
There’s no prior meetings between the two Frenchmen.
It’s not all that surprising, considering there’s a generational gap in terms of age, with Mayot just making his way onto the Challenger and main tours, while Paire has just recently been dipping back down to Challengers and hasn’t exactly made a lot of deep runs and played a lot of matches.
The stats I’ll be monitoring in this one are the service percentages, particularly those of Mayot. If he faces 10+ break points again and can’t clear the 70% mark for first serve points won, I think we’re very live to come away with another cashed wager backing Paire as an underdog.
SAFER GAMBLING
At bettingexpert, we always take a safe approach to gambling. We’ll never bet more than we can afford or chase losses. For more advice, head to our Safer Gambling hub.
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