Australian Open: Baltacha claims seeded scalp as Murray cruises on

For those watching the Australian Open on Bet365′s live streaming service, they will have seen Andy Murray cruise through to the third round of the Australian Open. Murray breezed to a straight sets victory over French opponent Marc Gicquel. Murray was in complete control, only being broke for the first time during the third set. Murray really wasn’t worked, and commanded the court very well, continuing his fine form early in the year. Murray now moves on to face another Frenchman Florent Serra, who is ranked 64th in the world. Remember for clients with funded Bet365 accounts, all the Australian Open is streamed live and free.

But perhaps a bigger success story for Scotland, was Elena Baltacha’s wonderful victory over the 32nd seed Kateryna Bondarkenko. The Scot wasn’t given much of chance at the bookies, but held herself together to record an excellent two set victory. She completely overran her higher ranked opponent in the first set, and had to dig deep at times to overcome nerves, clinching the second set 7-5. It was her ground strokes that set her apart in the first set, and that looked to be her strengths which she tried to stick to.

Now Baltacha’s, who has made the third round of the Australian Open before, has a dream third round match against Dinara Safina. Safina is world number two, and now Britain’s number one will get to pit her wits against a potential Australian Open winner. Safina looks a good bet for the title, as noted in our Women’s Draw Australian Open Preview. She finished as Runner-Up in last year’s tournament and has all the tools to go one better this year.

Other British hopes faded though, with Louk Sorenson and Katie O’Brien fell by the wayside in the second round. O’Brien, who had the tough task of facing Jelena Jankovic, simply never got going. Right from the off she struggled to get her first serves in, pretty much handing the match on a plate to Jankovic. Although she stuck to her task well, she looked far behind in class to the stronger 8th seed, but she simply made far too many errors, especially criminally on double faults.

So now, while Britain awaits Andy Murray’s next match, eyes should be turned towards Baltacha. She looks confident, and stuck to a great game plan which saw her beat Bondarenko, who is ranked over 50 places above her. Safina though will be an even big step up in class of opponent for Baltacha. Still, it provides some extra interest for tennis fans in the UK, almost grabbing the headlines from Murray who is expected to at least make a semi final appearance.

Andy Murray to win: 1/33 at William Hill
Florent Serra: 16/1 at Boylesports

Dinara Safina to win: 1/10 at Stan James
Elena Baltacha to win: 8/1 at Boylesports