Australian Open 2015 Men's Betting: Djokovic and Wawrinka set for another long Melbourne battle

Who will win when Djokovic and Wawrinka go head-to-head?

Novak Djokovic takes on Stan Wawrinka in the semi finals of the Australian Open on Friday and tennis expert Sean Calvert brings us his best bets in this clash of the former champions...

We're down to three in the 2015 Australian Open Men's Singles and although my second outright pick of Tomas Berdych fell in the semis he still made for a nice back-to-lay wager.

And it was a very comfortable winning day for those who were on my recommended wager of Thursday when Andy Murray cruised past Berdych 15-5 in the most aces market at a tasty 2.3811/8.

That bet was rarely in danger from the first Murray service game and it puts us back in profit on the match bets for the tournament even after half a dozen five set losses.

The second semi final between Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka begins at 08:30 UK time on Friday and it's an eagerly awaited rematch of their quarter final here last year that Stan won 9-7 in the fifth.

The head-to-head is overwhelmingly in favour of Djokovic, with a 19-3 record in all matches and 16-3 in competitive ones, but that doesn't tell anything like the full story, with their last three meetings in grand slams going to a full five sets.

Wawrinka is a different player to the one Djokovic faced in many of those earlier meetings and the Swiss is coming into his best form again at the right time after an impressive win over Kei Nishikori in the quarter finals.

If Wawrinka can serve as well as that again he has every chance of causing another upset or at least making Djokovic work very hard to get over the line and the over 36.5 total games looks likely here at around 1.804/5.

Stan has the knowledge that he can beat Nole over five sets at a major now and although the more likely occurrence is that the Serb will edge this one he hasn't looked exactly stable in his matches until he's got control.

He should have lost the opening set to Fernando Verdasco and he was chuntering away at himself in the early stages of the Gilles Muller and Milos Raonic matches too.

The world number one was never likely to lose any of those matches, but he could lose this one and if Stan starts quickly and gets that serve and heavily hit ground strokes firing it could be a tough old night for Djokovic.

It's not going to be overly warm or windy during the time this match is due to play and the lack of strong wind should help the shot maker go for the lines a bit more, but Wawrinka needs to be on his very best form to grab the win.

A more likely outcome for me is for Djokovic to sneak this one 3-2 at 7.5n/a and that looks one worth considering for back-to-lay punters, but over 36.5 total games seems very good indeed.

Recommended Bets
Back over 36.5 total games at 1.804/5
Back to lay Djokovic to win 3-2 at 7.5n/a

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Australian Open 2015 P&L

Profit based on 10 stake per bet = + 13.50