Australian Open 2015 Men's Betting: Power of Struff to prove too much for Sela

Struff can continue the Melbourne pain for Sela

Round one of the Men's Singles at the 2015 Australian Open gets under way in the early hours of Monday UK time and Sean Calvert is back with his best bets for day one...

The bottom half of the draw gets us underway on day one at Melbourne Park, with Andy Murray, Rafa Nadal, Tomas Berdych, and Roger Federer among the star names in action on Monday.

Murray looks to have a straightforward task against Yuki Bhambri, who does have wins against the likes of Jack Sock, Fabio Fognini, Denis Istomin and Tobias Kamke to his name at least.

But this will be his first Grand Slam main draw match and the Brit looks more than capable of winning this one with a minus 9.5 game handicap at around 1.664/6, despite some decent results in qualifying from the Indian.

I prefer a wager on Jan-Lennard Struff though, who is around 1.558/15 to take down Dudi Sela, whose record here in Melbourne isn't the best, with the diminutive Israeli not having won a match in the main draw here since 2009.

Sela has lost his last six matches at Melbourne Park and his record against the bigger servers isn't great either, with a 7-19 mark on outdoor hard against the big servers in my database.

A 3-6 mark in the last year and 12-23 lifetime at main level against players of 6'4" or over tell a similar tale and doesn't bode well against the 6'5" German, who has played some decent tennis already this year.

Struff beat Philipp Kohlschreiber in Doha and Dominic Thiem in Auckland, while Sela is yet to hit a ball competitively in 2015 and there's enough in this to think that Sela's 2013 Challenger win over Struff can be turned around.

For a real long shot today I like the idea of backing the mercurial talents of the entertainer Dustin Brown to sneak the first set on a tie break against Grigor Dimitrov, who started slowly here a year ago.

Brown should enjoy his billing on Show Court 2 first up at midnight UK time and if he serves well I see no reason why he can't take the first set 7-6 at a whopping 13.012/1.

This sort of stage is perfect for Brown, who should enjoy the quick conditions and he took Dimitrov to a decider in their only previous career meeting, but much depends on what sort of mood Brown is in.

Dimitrov doesn't break serve enough for my liking and he dropped his opening set 6-7 to Bradley Klahn here a year ago before going on to play another four tie breaks in his run to the last eight.

In addition to these bets several of my 'potential upsets' play today, so there are numerous options on day one in Melbourne.

Recommended Bets
Back Struff to beat Sela at 1.558/15
Back to lay Brown to win set one 7-6 vs Dimitrov at 13.012/1

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