After Upset of Medvedev, Stan Wawrinka’s Australian Open Odds Shorten from 50-1 to 16-1

• Stan Wawrinka was as high as 60/1 to win the Australian Open
• Wawrinka is 0-2 head-to-head with Alex Zverev, who he’ll face in the quarters
• Wawrinka is just 3-19 against Rafael Nadal and 6-19 against Novak Djokovic in his career

While the women’s side of the 2020 Australian Open has seen a number of top seeds falter, the men’s side has mostly been by-the-book. One of the few exceptions has been No. 4 Daniil Medvedev, who was upset by No. 15 Stan Wawrinka. Wawrinka’s odds to win the tournament have shortened significantly. Is he worth a bet to win it all?

2020 Australian Men’s Singles Odds

Odds taken Jan. 27

Wawrinka Stuns Medvedev to Advance to Quarters

The biggest surprise on the men’s side is that Medvedev is not in the Australian Open quarters. After all, we’re talking about a player who won more hard court matches than anyone last season and made it to the 2019 US Open final.

Wawrinka and Medvedev had an entertaining match as Wawrinka won the first set, lost the next two, survived a third-set tiebreaker to stay alive and then won the fifth set. Now he’s back in the Australian Open quarters for the first time since 2017. He’s won this tournament before and been to at least the semis three times now.

Wawrinka Has Struggled at the Aussie Open

Although Wawrinka did knock off Medvedev, the concern is that he hasn’t looked great in his other matches. He did beat No. 19 John Isner in the third round but he retired midway through the second set. Wawrinka needed five sets to survive unseeded Andrea Seppi in the second round and even dropped a set to Damir Dzumhur in the opening round.

He’s lost a total of 71 games through just four matches and one of those matches was cut short. Even so, he’s losing an average of 17.8 games per match, which is not a strong number. To put that in perspective, Novak Djokovic is only losing 10 games per match. Rafael Nadal has only lost 43 games so far while Roger Federer has only lost 52.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryGjopyMbxY

Keep in mind that Wawrinka is 34 years old and this type of wear-and-tear can grind him down far more than if he was in his early 20’s. I’m fully expecting this to catch up to him.

What’s the Best Bet?

It’s interesting to note that Wawrinka’s Australian Open odds have shortened from +6067 earlier in this tournament and odds of +5000 before his win over Medvedev. He’s still on the board with average odds of +2733. While that might seem like a juicy payday, it’s not a realistic result in my eyes.

To start, he’ll have to beat No. 7 Alex Zverev in the quarters, which is doable but he’s never beaten him before (0-2). If he wins, he’ll then have to go through No. 1 Rafael Nadal, who is 19-3 in head-to-head matches against Wawrinka. It is possible that Nadal loses to No. 5 Dominic Thiem but that’s unlikely.

And if Wawrinka gets through those two players, he’ll then likely have to face someone like No. 2 Novak Djokovic. Djokovic is 19-6 against him.

Is it possible that Nadal is upset along the way or maybe Roger Federer and Djokovic stumble too, opening up the door for someone else to win? Sure. Even at that point, I’d still have Wawrinka on par with some of the other players remaining.

He had a nice win over Medvedev but in my view, that’s all it was. His path to an Australian Open championship seems very unlikely this year. I still see this as Djokovic’s tournament to lose with Nadal being the most likely man to stand in his way. I’d bet either one of those ahead of Wawrinka.