Australian Open Best Bet: Gael Monfils vs. Taylor Fritz

Get ready for a battle between Gael Monfils and Taylor Fritz in the third round of the Australian Open. Monfils arrived in Melbourne after having won the ASB Classic in Auckland, and he has already defeated Giovani Mpetshi Perricard and Daniel Altmaier at this event. In truth, there aren’t many players that can say they’re in better form than the 38-year-old Frenchman.

With that in mind, I’m interested in seeing how he looks against the 2024 US Open runner-up. And while some may feel this is when Monfils crashes, I think he’ll look better than expected, which is why I’m going Over on 3.5 sets.

I thought about going with Monfils to win a set at -139, but this play is similar and has better odds. It just calls for Fritz—an -833 favorite to win this match—to win a set as well. So, instead of just backing Monfils to win one, I’m looking for both players to get on the board.

There are a lot of reasons to like Monfils to make something happen in this match. Let's start with his serve. This season, Monfils has a hold percentage of 89.3%. He’s making 60.5% of his first serves, winning 80.3% of his first-serve points and winning 69.0% of his service points. All of those numbers are tremendous. If he just comes close to doing what he has done all year, he’s going to get himself deep into sets and potentially into some tiebreakers. Doing that would make it highly likely he comes away with at least one.

Monfils also happens to be long and athletic enough to disrupt Fritz's serve. We just saw Monfils put a lot of pressure on Mpetshi Perricard’s serve, and that’s the biggest server in tennis right now. Compared to that, Fritz’s is going to look like a changeup.

Monfils’ break percentage isn’t anything special right now, which largely has to do with that Mpetshi Perricard match. But he has been dialed in as a returner, so I like him to find some break-point opportunities here.

The one thing to worry about with Monfils is fatigue. He played five matches in his title run in Auckland, and his opening-round match against Mpetshi Perricard was very physical. That’s a lot for an older player, and we did see him gasping for air and doing his classic hands-on-knees pose against Altmaier. But some of that is just gamesmanship, and he tends to tap into his mobility and athleticism even when he looks like he’s running on empty. Also, the Altmaier match only took two hours and 20 minutes. That straight-set win should help him recharge a little for this one.

It’s also worth mentioning that these two played in this very tournament back in 2019, when Fritz won 6-3, 6-7 (8), 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5). Sure, Fritz is a much better player today than he was then. But Monfils is also playing better to start 2025 than he was in 2019.

I’m not sure this match will look all that different than the last one. These two aren’t exactly servebots, but they’re going to rack up holds. So, when we get late in sets and get to coin-flip tiebreakers, I like Monfils’ chances of avoiding a straight-set loss.

Pick: Over 3.5 Sets (-121)