Australian Open Tennis Day 8 Predictions, Picks & Best Bets: Alexander Zverev should continue to cruise 

Yes, we are already through 7 days of competition at the tennis season’s first Grand Slam. Now it’s time for Week 2 at the Australian Open, where fourth-round action gets underway on Sunday. Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff are among those taking the court. 

Let’s take a look at the best bets to be made on the Day 8 schedule. 

Parlay: Carlos Alcaraz -1.5 sets over Jack Draper and Alexander Zverev -1.5 sets over Ugo Humbert (-121) 

Each of these 2 underdogs – each a left-hander – can be dangerous. However, for various reasons they are both in very unfavorable spots on Sunday. Draper has an especially dauting task in front of him. The oft-injured Brit has played 3 consecutive 5-set matches, including 2 especially grueling tests in the last 2 rounds against Thanasi Kokkinakis and Aleksandar Vukic. Draper will have to be 100 percent to even think about competing with Alcaraz, and it’s unlikely he will be anywhere close to his peak level. The scenes are almost as dire for Humbert. He just faced Zverev in the Paris final this past fall and got blown out 6-2, 6-2. Adding insult to injury (or vice versa), the Frenchman took a medical timeout for a shoulder problem in his last match against Arthur Fils. 

Parlay: Novak Djokovic ML over Jiri Lehecka and Tommy Paul ML over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (-147) 

Djokovic wasn’t a big enough favorite against Tomas Machac in the third round. Unsurprisingly, the 37-year-old raised his level as he got deeper into a Grand Slam and destroyed Machac in straight sets. Despite that result, the market hasn’t adjusted at all and Djokovic is once again too short of a favorite against another Czech opponent. Lehecka is talented, but he has never really seriously tested the best players in the world. Meanwhile, Paul could not have asked for a better opportunity to make a return trip to the Aussie Open quarterfinals. The American is sweeping Davidovich Fokina 3-0 in their head-to-head series, including one win at Melbourne Park. Moreover, ADF is coming off back-to-back five-setters – one of which is the longest match of the tournament thus far against Felix Auger-Aliassime (four hours and 51 minutes).

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova +1.5 games over Donna Vekic (-110)

The sample size is small, but Pavlyuchenkova has enjoyed such lopsided success against Vekic that it has to be considered significant. The Russian rolled 6-1, 6-1 in Tokyo at the end of the 2023 season and they also faced each other last year at this same Aussie Open, where she cruised 6-4, 6-4. It’s hard to see Vekic turning the tide, as the Swiss was red hot in 2024 but appears to have cooled off significantly. She is just 3-3 since the turn of the calendar and is coming off back-to-back three-setters. A well-rested Pavlyuchenkova, on the other hand, mostly coasted through the first week of this tournament.

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