Australian Open Best Bets 2024: Top Picks, Predictions for Men & Women
The Australian Open officially kicks off the Grand Slam tennis season for 2024, and we offer our Australian Open best bets based on the odds from our best sports betting sites.
Novak Djokovic continues to chase history as tennis fans are treated to the season's first Grand Slam event. He looks for his record 11th Australian Open title, and it'd be his 25th overall Grand Slam title. The latter would break the tie with Margaret Court for the most major titles of any men’s or women’s player in tennis history.
Stan Wawrinka is the only other men’s player in the field with an Australian Open title following Rafael Nadal's injury, and that came back in 2014.
On the women's side, only four players (Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka, and Coco Gauff) have odds shorter than +1800. We're noticing increased parity in the sport, as the 2023 season was the sixth time in the last seven years that a different player won each of the Grand Slams.
Sx of the previous eight women to win the Australian Open were first-time winners, and four of those (Angelique Kerber, Caroline Wozniacki, Sofia Kenin, and Aryna Sabalenka) won their maiden Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open.
The women’s draw received much more buzz and attention with the announcement that two-time winner and four-time major champion Naomi Osaka would make her return for the first time since 2022.
Here are our Australian Open best bets based on the best Australian Open odds; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Australian Open best bets
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Australian Open predictions
Carlos Alcaraz to win (+350 via DraftKings, FanDuel) ⭐⭐⭐
World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz makes his first Australian Open appearance since 2022 after missing last year’s event due to a hamstring injury. Alcaraz lost in the second and third rounds in his only two previous Australian Open appearances, with the latter being the only five-set loss (he lost in a fifth-set tiebreaker to eventual semifinalist Matteo Berrettini) of his career.
Alcaraz is one of the few players in the sport to claim wins at the ATP’s three biggest hard-court events (Miami (2022), US Open (2022), Indian Wells (2023)). And per OptaAce, his success at the four Grand Slams last year was nearly unparalleled, as his 89.5% winning percentage was the second-highest all-time in the Open Era among players under 21 years of age. Alcaraz is 45-9 (.833) on outdoor hard courts over the last two seasons, and while he is known as a clay-court specialist, that winning percentage is not far off from his numbers on clay (88%) in that span.
Alcaraz played only 17 tournaments last season, and with every other player in the top five of the ATP rankings except for Djokovic playing more matches than him in 2023, his fresh legs are a big reason we are backing his +350 odds to win his first Australian Open and third overall Grand Slam.
Djokovic has an active 28-match Australian Open winning streak, and is 20-0 at this Grand Slam in the semifinals and finals, but is also dealing with a wrist injury, and that has us viewing his odds as too short.
FanDuel and DraftKings provide the best value for this futures wager, as BetMGM and bet365 offer slightly lower +333 odds.
Iga Swiatek to win (+250 via DraftKings) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Iga Swiatek was on quite the tear entering the United Cup, having not lost a match since last September when she was defeated by Veronika Kudermetova in the Tokyo quarterfinals. After breezing through three singles matches in the United Cup semifinals, Swiatek had won 14 consecutive matches, 22 consecutive sets, and dropped just one set out of her previous 29.
Perhaps it is not fair that her winning streak ended as part of a mixed doubles match, in the United Cup finals, but Swiatek brilliantly mixed it up with several of the biggest servers in the men’s draw, which no doubt serves as a great tune-up for the Australian Open.
Swiatek briefly relinquished her No. 1 WTA ranking last year to Aryna Sabalenka, but she responded with an 11-match winning streak in Beijing and Cancun to quickly regain the top spot, and she is more than capable of adding her first Australian Open title to her four Grand Slams (three at Roland Garros, one at the US Open).
The way Swiatek cruised through her first five singles matches of this season suggests that she is ready to break through for her first Australian Open title. In addition, her 16 consecutive singles match victories make up her longest winning streak since her 37-match streak in 2022.
All of our other best sports betting apps have Swiatek at +230 odds or shorter to win the Australian Open, so DraftKings provides the best value in comparison.
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That would bring Swiatek's odds from +250 to +325 for a difference of $7.50 on a winning $10 bet!
Australian Open props
Mirra Andreeva to win Quarter 4 (+750 via FanDuel) ⭐⭐⭐
Andreeva is one of the most talented teenagers in the sport, and the future looks bright for the 16-year-old. Andreeva is playing in her first Australian Open this year, after going 6-3 combined in her other three maiden Grand Slam appearances.
Andreeva’s best result was a fourth-round exit at Wimbledon, but she was eliminated in the third round at the French Open and the second round at the US Open, with each loss coming against Gauff.
She is 4-4 on hard courts in her young career, and her biggest win this season was against No. 4 seed Liudmila Samsonova in the Round of 32 at Brisbane. Andreeva is still looking for her first singles title at any WTA event, but she has four wins against top 20 players and ascended to the No. 47 world ranking after being ranked outside the top 290 at this time last year.
Andreeva has the second-best odds to win her quarter behind Aryna Sabalenka, but even though she would have to get through Ons Jabeur before a potential quarterfinal meeting with Sabalenka, the +750 odds at FanDuel are too good to pass up when DraftKings offers +450 for the same wager.
Novak Djokovic not to win (-140 via DraftKings) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
DraftKings has a prop offering the trio of Djokovic/Alcaraz/Medvedev to win the title at a whopping -500 odds compared to the field’s price of +330, so oddsmakers are tipping their hand that one of the big three will capture the hardware. However, consider this a double-down on our Alcaraz pick.
Not only do we think Alcaraz would beat Djokovic if they met in the final, but we also feel Jannik Sinner has an outstanding chance to beat him in the semifinals if they were matched up.
There is optimism for Sinner, the World No. 4, entering the Australian Open, as he went 20-3 in his final 23 matches in 2023, winning titles in Beijing and Vienna before leading Italy to its first Davis Cup title in nearly 50 years. Sinner is the youngest player to reach the quarterfinals of all four Grand Slams since Djokovic did it in 2008, and will look for guidance from Aussie coach Darren Cahill to get him over the top in this Grand Slam.
Sinner now has multiple wins over two of the world’s best, Djokovic and Medvedev, and at the very least, Sinner could push Djokovic enough to force the Serb to have weary legs in a potential final against Alcaraz.
Alcaraz is 1-1 against Djokovic in majors, and would not be a huge underdog to the world No. 1 if they were to meet in the final.
Australian Open best bets made 1/11/2024 at 3:58 p.m. ET.
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