Many predicted Aryna Sabalenka’s spot in the final, as she had the second-shortest pre-tournament odds (+400 at DraftKings) to win her second Grand Slam. However, many thought she would be facing Elena Rybakina or World No. 1 Iga Swiatek, and not the 21-year-old Qinwen Zheng.
Zheng had been ousted in the second round of her only two Australian Open appearances, and did not advance to the quarterfinal round of any of her first seven majors. However, perhaps the Chinese is finding her footing on hard courts, as she broke her quarterfinal drought at last year’s US Open, and is looking to become the fifth woman in the previous nine years to win her maiden Grand Slam at the Australian Open.
Read on for our thoughts and predictions for the 2024 Women’s Australian Open finals.
Aryna Sabalenka & Qinwen Zheng will face each other in the final of the Australian Open.
Aryna leads the head to head 1-0. The only time they played was in the US Open Quarterfinals last year.
Aryna is on a 13 match win streak at the Australian Open & hasn't lost a set all... pic.twitter.com/OJx8NlFljo
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) January 25, 2024
Aryna Sabalenka’s path to the Final
def. Ella Seidel 6-0, 6-1, Brenda Fruhvivirtova 6-3, 6-2, No. 28 Lesia Tsurenko 6-0, 6-0, Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 6-2, No. 9 Barbora Krejcikova 6-2, 6-3, No. 4 Coco Gauff 7-6, 6-4
Qinwen Zheng’s path to the Final
def. Ashlyn Krueger 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, Katie Boulter 6-3, 6-3, Wang Yafan 6-4, 2-6, 7-6, Oceane Dodin 6-0, 6-3, Anna Kalinskaya 6-7, 6-3, 6-1, Dayana Yastremska 6-4, 6-4
2024 Women’s Australian Open Final Picks & Predictions
(odds via DraftKings)
Aryna Sabalenka vs. Qinwen Zheng Prediction
When weighing the reasons why Sabalenka or Zheng will win this match, there are hardly any that surface in Zheng’s favor. Sabalenka is 29-3 in her previous 32 Grand Slam matches, including a 13-match winning streak at the Australian Open. She has also navigated a difficult draw to get to this point, beating two Grand Slam champions (Krejcikova won the 2021 French Open, Gauff won the 2023 US Open) along the way. And Sabalenka has made getting to this point look relatively easy, winning all 12 sets played, and only being pushed past nine games in a set once (a 7-6 first-set tiebreak against Coco Gauff in the semifinals). However, even that set could have been wrapped up earlier, as Sabalenka was broken when serving for the set at 5-4.
By comparison, Zheng’s draw was much less imposing given all the upsets that took place around her, and she did not have to beat a single seeded player to get to this point. And while her semifinal opponent, Dayana Yastremska, at one point was ranked No. 21 in the world, she was still in this tournament as a qualifier, and was just the second woman qualifier in the Open Era ever to reach the Australian Open semifinals.
Thus, it is easy to see why Sabalenka is a massive -500 moneyline favorite in this match, and bettors are being forced to break the bank to back the World No. 2 in several of the prop markets. For example, Sabalenka has -380 odds to win each individual set, and BetMGM is juiced as high as -190 for her to win in straight sets.
Therefore, to maximize returns on our wager, we are focusing on the O/U of the number of games played, or the game spread for this match. Despite Sabalenka failing to cover the game spread in eight of her previous 10 WTA Finals, she is still 13-12 overall in her 25 WTA Finals appearances, and is only now reaching the pinnacle of her career. She is the most feared player on the women’s circuit on hard courts, reaching the final of the last three hard-court Grand Slam tournaments. And while Sabalenka has not dropped a set against a tricky draw in this tournament, Zheng has played as many three-set as two-set matches, showing her vulnerability and inconsistency at times. The experience that Sabalenka has on the big stage will be too much for the 21-year-old Zheng to overcome, and we expect a dominant 6-2 or better set victory will help pave the way for Sabalenka to cover the spread of -4.5 games.
Pick: Sabalenka -4.5 games (-145 on DraftKings)
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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01
