2020 Australian Open ATP Day 4 Betting Picks & Odds: Can Ymer Advance Past Khachanov?

Thursday features the remaining 16 ATP singles matches in Round 2. Still, since the tournament is played in Australia, the slate kicks off at 7 p.m. E.T. on Wednesday evening in North America — so you'll need to get your bets in early.

Let's examine some more second-round bets in the men's singles draw.

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 Day 4 Australian Open Best Bets

Nikoloz Basilashvili (+166) vs. Fernando Verdasco | O/U: 39

• Time: 8:15 p.m. ET
• Where: Court 13
• H2H: Tied 1-1

This pair has split a couple of hard court meetings in the past two years, with Basilashvili winning three of the five sets in those matches.

It's an intriguing matchup between the Georgian Basilashvili — who is the better player in a vacuum and can play at an extremely high level — and the Spaniard Verdasco, who excels in best of five matches (115-72, 61.5% career) and always makes for a tough out in Slams.

Verdasco coasted through his first-round match, while Basilashvili went the distance with Kwon Soon-woo, perhaps explaining why Verdasco was installed as such a substantial favorite.

In a three-set match, I would certainly favor the enigmatic Georgian, and at a Slam, I would make this line more of a pick'em and see actionable value down to +125.

Mikael Ymer (+228) vs. Karen Khachanov | O/U: 36

• Time: 2 a.m. ET
• Where: Court 3
• H2H: First meeting

Ymer has looked significantly more comfortable and confident on serve in recent weeks, and the fact that this match will be played on an outdoor court in windy conditions — where Khachanov looked out of sorts in his first-round match on Monday — should only help the Swede's chances.

But Ymer has also struggled against players with big power, getting blown off the court by Jannik Sinner in the Next Gen Finals and Hubert Hurkacz in the Auckland Open.

However, he did avenge a Next Gen finals loss to Francis Tiafoe at that Auckland tournament and might finally be turning a corner and capitalizing on his potential heading into 2020.

I think Ymer has a fair chance of getting past Khashanov into the third round and achieving his best ever Slam result. 

Other Matches to Watch

Big-serving Kevin Anderson won his first-round match in a fifth set tiebreak. Perhaps he's shaken off the Slam rust and though he didn't look great in that match, I still like his chances as just a small favorite against Taylor Fritz. 

Pierre-Hugues Herbert is a massive underdog to David Goffin — and with good reason. Goffin has won all three matches and six of seven sets between them, but Herbert also lost one set in a tiebreak and dropped another 7-5. I think that this spread is one-half game too high, and I like PHH's chances to cover — even in a straight-set loss.

I keyed on Alexei Popyrin in a parlay. The Aussie looked in fine form in his upset win against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in round one, showing off his power and movement, and he draws clay-court specialist Jaume Munar in Round 2. Unless he's hampered by unforced errors, Popyrin should blast his way past the defensive Spaniard.

I also included Andrey Rublev and Pablo Carreno Busta ("PCB") in that parlay. The Russian continues to be undervalued in the betting markets, with a line of around -800 when he should be priced like the top players; closer to -1,500 or higher against lesser opponents.

PCB has won all four sets that he has played against Peter Gojowyck, and he's made it to the fourth round in consecutive years in Melbourne. The Spaniard should roll over the German, but my parlay game has been a bit wonky to start the year — so we'll play this for smaller stakes.

Lastly, I think Egor Gerasimov can force Alexander Zverev to work harder than he wants to, but I'm not expecting an upset and I'm worried about the German getting to his peak level and winning a set 6-0 or 6-1, which would ruin a spread bet. But I do think that the game total is slightly low, and I'll take a stab at the over.

Bets (So Far) for Jan. 22-23

Odds swing quicker in tennis than in any other sport, so stay tuned on Twitter for my entire Tennis betting card for Jan. 22.

• Kevin Anderson -130 (0.5 units)
• Nikoloz Basilashvili +166 (0.5 units)
• Pierre-Hugues Herbert +7.5 Games (-103, 0.5 units)
• Mikael Ymer +228 (0.5 Units)
• Parlay (106): Pablo Carreno Busta / Andrey Rublev / Alexei Popyrin (0.5 units)
• Over 36 Games (-112), Egor Gerasimov / Alexander Zverev (0.5 units)

[Bet the Australian Open now at FanDuel. NJ, PA, IN and WV only.]