Australian Open men's singles final predictions & tennis betting tips: Djokovic still in charge

Where to watch

Live on Eurosport 1, 8.30am Sunday

Best bet

Novak Djokovic to win 3-0
1pt 6-4 bet365, Hills

Advised pre-tournament

Novak Djokovic to win Australian Open men's singles
5pts 5-6 general

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Final preview 

Stefanos Tsitsipas is the latest player to try to bring down Novak Djokovic in the Serb’s preferred Grand Slam backyard of Melbourne Park.

But while the 24-year-old Tsitsipas is in decent touch and still learning his day job, trying to inflict a first defeat on Djokovic in the Australian Open singles since 2018 is still highly likely to prove beyond the popular Greek.

Djokovic is a 2-9 chance to win his 22nd Slam singles title and draw level with his great rival Rafael Nadal in the process.

Nadal will obviously hold high hopes of adding to his 14 French Open singles titles in the spring, while Djokovic will also feel confident of landing an eighth Wimbledon singles triumph at his second-favourite Slam this summer. But those later courses can wait.

Viewers get the chance today to see the player who has taken fast-court tennis to a new level perform in an arena he has made his own.

Last year’s trials and tribulations down under, where Djokovic was meted out some unfair treatment, much of it down to the personal decisions he chose during the pandemic, will now seem like a distant bad dream.

He’s back and determined to make up for lost time in a 2022 campaign which saw him net only one Slam singles victory.

That was Nadal’s year – the Spaniard won the Australian and the French Opens – and Djokovic is likely to want to make 2023 his season. The former world number one, currently languishing down at fifth in the ATP rankings, looked fit as a fiddle on his return to Victoria this year.

There have been question marks surrounding his fitness but Djokovic has dispelled many with some sterling displays in the last few weeks.

There have been odd murmurs – Djokovic was coasting in the first set of his semi-final against Tommy Paul before winning it 7-5, and he dropped his only set of the competition against qualifier Enzo Couacaud in round two.

But for the most part, and when he has had to be on his game, Djokovic has looked pretty much unstoppable, dismissing Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev in straight sets in the last 16 and eight.

There could be a ray of hope for Tsitsipas in that Grigor Dimitrov, probably the most powerful physical opponent Djokovic has faced in the first Slam of the campaign, kept the Serb up to his game in round three.

But Tsitsipas is still a maiden at Slam level and Djokovic has the advantage of knowing how to control a title match a lot more than his younger, less-experienced rival.

Tsitsipas has done little wrong in defeating Jannik Sinner in five sets and Karen Khachanov, who was in fine form himself, in four.

But Djokovic has won ten of his 12 previous meetings with Tsitsipas, including the last nine clashes, and claimed victory in their last two outdoor hard-court rumbles in straight sets.

Anyone who has backed Djokovic to lift the title doesn’t need to bet again. Otherwise, a punt on the great man winning 3-0 is worth having.

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