Mackenzie McDonald and Aslan Karatsev both had to grind out wins in the first round of the Australian Open, needing more than three sets to get the job done. They face off in round two in Melbourne, with Karatsev looking to build on last year’s semifinal appearance and McDonald looking to make a run of his own. In today’s tennis picks, we look at McDonald vs Karatsev in the second round of the Australian Open from a betting perspective.
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Mackenzie McDonald vs Aslan Karatsev
Why Bet On McDonald:
✅ Aslan Karatsev has played way too much tennis early in this season to be reliable in this match. He won the Sydney tune-up event last week, and played a five-set match in his opener against Jaume Munar to start the Australian Open. He has played five matches within the last week after not having played in months, and that will be a factor here.
✅ In addition to having played a lot of tennis over the last week, Karatsev was unconvincing at best in the first round against a clay court specialist in Munar. Karatsev dumped in 107 unforced errors against an opponent in Munar who simply can’t dictate points with his pace. Against McDonald, Karatsev’s erratic play will get him in trouble once again.
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✅ McDonald, while not an explosive player, was able to win nearly 80% of his first serve points in the first round. He will face a tougher opponent here than he did in round one, but he should be able to exploit the lack of consistency from Karatsev to hold serve enough to cover the games line.
Mackenzie McDonald
Mackenzie McDonald won in four sets in the first round against Nikola Milojevic, winning the final three sets after dropping the first. McDonald broke Milojevic seven times in the four-set match, winning 55% of the points he played against the Serb. Now, McDonald faces a step up in competition against an opponent in Karatsev who is defending semifinalist points in the Australian Open.
Something that worked well for McDonald against Milojevic was playing at the net. McDonald won 22 of the 28 points he played at the net in the first round, and could use that to his advantage to force Karatsev to try and pass him. Given Karatsev’s high error count in the first round, that pressure could cause the Russian to falter.
Aslan Karatsev
Aslan Karatsev won his first round match over Jaume Munar, but it certainly wasn’t easy. Karatsev needed five full sets to take down the Spaniard, with the Russian coming back from a set down on two different occasions before winning in the fifth. While a win is a win, Karatsev will have to be disappointed in struggling that much against a player in Munar who is typically terrible when not on the clay.
If Karatsev wants to avoid an early exit at the hands of McDonald, he is going to need to reel in the sloppy play. Over 100 unforced errors, even in a five set match, is entirely too many to reliably win matches. If his recent workload hasn’t caused him too much fatigue, he will need to focus on precision over power to avoid getting himself in trouble.