Monfils and Raonic feature in 50/1 Australian Open treble

While the likes of Novak Djokovic, Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych have made serene progress into the third round of the Australian Open without dropping a set, some of the other seeds in the men’s draw may not have it so easy.

The second round action continues on day five in Melbourne, where Milos Raonic, Kei Nishikori and Gael Monfils are fancied to drop sets.

Backing this trio to all progress to the third round with 3-1 victories is certainly worth a saver at 50/1 in the Australian Open betting.

Raonic may be seeded at 11, but the fact that he dropped a set against clay-court specialist Daniel Gimeno-Traver in his opener here does little to indicate that he will blow the far more dangerous Victor Hanescu out of the water.

Raonic won less than half the points on his second serve against the Spaniard and if this statistic fails to improve, Hanescu is certainly in line to win a set.

The prospect of facing Rafael Nadal surely lies in wait for the winner of Monfils’ clash with Jack Sock.

Monfils was especially dominant on his first serve when seeing off Ryan Harrison in his opener, winning 43 points out of 50, but Sock is also an impressive server, so a tie-break in the match is more than likely.

With Monfils also known to go through lacklustre periods in matches, Sock has the game to take advantage, even if only for a set.

Finally, Nishikori required five sets to see off Marinko Matosevic in the first round, who is still to win a game at a Grand Slam after 11 attempts, and therefore, he may be below his best here.

Lajovic is unlikely to be good enough to beat an 80-per-cent Nishikori, but can at least keep things tight and potentially knick a set.