tennis | Monday, March 6, 2023 12:15 PM (Revised at: Monday, March 6, 2023 1:19 PM)

Monday Tennis Best Bet: WTA Indian Wells, Viktorija Golubic vs Olga Danilovic

Jon Reid

Viktorija Golubic vs Olga Danilovic Best Bet: Monday, March 6th

Well, it happened again on Thursday, as Xinyu Wang was just two points from wrapping up her match against Mayar Sherif in straight sets and landing both bets. Sadly, she collapsed, ended up broken and lost the match outright in three.

Onto a new week, where we enter a part of the schedule known as the “Sunshine Double.” The next four weeks of the main tours will be spent at big events in Southern California and Miami, where thousands of rankings points and millions of dollars will be up for grabs.

We’ll begin in the desert atmosphere of Indian Wells, colloquially referred to as the “fifth slam.” It is consistently voted the best of the Masters series events by players, and should provide some fireworks in the coming weeks.

For Monday’s selection, we’ll look at the qualifying matchup between Viktorija Golubic and Olga Danilovic.

In this article:

Viktorija Golubic vs Olga Danilovic Preview
Viktorija Golubic vs Olga Danilovic Best Bet

Viktorija Golubic vs Olga Danilovic Preview

March 6th, 23:30 (UK Time)

The first thing to note – and something I’ll be mentioning a lot of in the coming weeks – is that these hard courts are famously (or infamously, depending on who you ask) slow. In fact, they may be the slowest hard courts the tour will play on all season long.

This is important, just because traditional hard-court data and records need to be contextualised far more when handicapping matches. If two players have similar elo ratings and hold plus break percentages, it’s going to be important to look into each player’s history in slower conditions to see who should be favoured in these matches.

With that said, let’s talk about Golubic and Danilovic.

Priced as a near dead heat, I have the Serbian youngster favoured in this one.

After a slow couple of years, with a few injuries thrown into the mix, it’s almost as though the markets have forgotten just how talented Danilovic is. It’s easy to forget she’s still only 22 years old, as well.

She’s just 4-4 this season, but has been a rather consistent underdog in the markets and has several wins, as well as a few other three-set losses as the player expected to lose that indicate the market may be undervaluing her.

She also has a game well-suited for both hard courts and clay courts, with a big first serve, but also the ability to move well for a player of her height and she hits with spin, which helps on higher-bouncing courts.

We get just that in Indian Wells, where the power will allow her to dictate, but her spin and familiarity with slower conditions should also prove to be useful.

Golubic, on the other hand, plays a flatter style more conducive in lower-bouncing, quicker conditions.

She was poor on clay last year, and though she went 3-2 during this March swing, she needed three sets and over 50 unforced errors against Jasmine Paolini, three sets against a soon-to-be-retired Kirsten Flipkens and three sets against the mercurial Yulia Putintseva.

Her form has been non-existent this season, with the Swiss losing her last five matches and 10 of her last 11 sets. In fact, she’s averaged just five games won in the last three she’s played.

Finally, she’s been an unforced error machine to this point on the season. That’s of particular importance here, because the one knock on Danilovic is her penchant to hit erratically. If you’re going to donate as many – or more – points right back – you’re in big trouble.

Viktorija Golubic vs Olga Danilovic Best Bet

Whether it be style, the conditions or form, my analysis has Danilovic as a clear favourite.

That alone is enough to get me off the sidelines and into the betting markets for this one. The question now becomes how large of a favourite should she be and what should the size of one’s stake be?

For me, the correct price should be in the 1.71-1.74 range, giving us a fair-sized edge here.