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With all the great opportunities on the Betfair Exchange comes incredible data. The team at Betfair provides a Washup of some of the biggest sporting events, with the stunning results, boilovers and statistical quirks that come with the action!
A CRAZY NIGHT AT MELBOURNE PARK!
The magic of sport is the unpredictability day to day, and in the case of tennis, from moment to moment!
As echoes of the Kokkinakis/Murray classic from 2023 still reverberate around Melbourne Park, a new chapter of stunning results are being written before our eyes.
22nd seed Sorana Cirstea of Romania would be no stranger to the ups and downs of tennis but she was reminded in brutal fashion during her first round clash with Yafan Wang of China. The pre-match favourite was dominating the contest, racing to a 6-0, 3-0 lead inside 35 minutes with thoughts of the dreaded "double bagel" in the minds of many watching.
Cirstea traded at $1.01 on the Exchange with more than $50,000 matched on her at that price.
The World No.94 Yafan Wang seemingly flicked a switch though, winning 13 of the last 17 games to prevail 0-6, 7-5, 6-2 having traded at $100 in-game. Steve Quick from Ace Previews put the result in perspective.
"Cirstea was 56-9 since 2019 after winning the first set of a match," Quick said.
"It was certainly a surprising result given the total domination of the first 30 minutes.
"Wang won only three points on serve in the opening set which did give her room for improvement based on that low first serve percentage." He added.
Quick pointed to the 2024 Australian Open throwing up numerous examples of momentum swings.
"Like a number of matches across the opening days the tide turned very quickly, with Wang, who defeated world No.16 Caroline Garcia at the US Open last year, running away with the decider."
Wang now opens up the draw for herself by taking the run of the seeded Cirstea and will now face Emma Raducanu in the second round.
The turnarounds didn't stop there, with Australian comeback queen Ajla Tomjlanovic getting in on the action.
Tomljanovic was 1-4 down in the third set against Croatian veteran Petra Martic before peeling off five games in a row to secure the win.
The Aussie traded at $24 on Betfair with her opponent getting as low as $1.04 with $2500 matched at that price.
"Just super happy," Tomljanovic said post match.
"I mean, I really didn't think at 1-4 in the third, two breaks down, it was going to happen.
"I felt like the match the whole time, I would lose two games quickly because she just played great.
"Then I was straight back in. It felt so up and down. I knew if I just kept snagging games, I might find myself in a position of not being so far off." she added.
Tomljanovic will now play Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko in the second round.
Steve Quick provides daily previews of all the Australian Open action, and you can check them out here
