Tennis Preview - The Medibank International and Heineken Open

With only one week until the Australian Open, then tennis action is starting to hot up – literally. Last week's Adelaide International saw some extreme temperatures and it would be no surprise to see this continue throughout the month of January.

The major mens tournament of the week is in Sydney with the Medibank International seeing some of big names hit the courts in their final preparations for next week's grand slam.

When looking for a bit of value in the early rounds, you would be wise to take a close look at the underrated Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka. He was in super form last time out in a strong Doha event, taking the scalp of Ivan Ljubicic on his way to a 3 set loss to Andy Murray in the final. He made the third round of the Australian Open last year before succumbing to Nadal. The 1.70 currently available against the enigmatic Russian Dmitry Tursonov appears to be good shopping, setting up a big clash with the top seed Richard Gasquet in the second round – which won't be out of his grasp.

The exciting young Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro will do battle with talented Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu and at odds of around 2.40 he looks a good value bet. Del Potro holds a 2-0 head to head advantage, including a victory over Mathieu in Adelaide last year. Both players appeared a little rusty last week in their return for the year, and if Del Potro can apply pressure to Mathieu early on he just might find enough chinks in his armour to get the chocolates.

The other tournament for the men is in Auckland for the Heineken Open, where the top seed David Ferrer will start a short priced favourite to start his year off with a bang in the land of the long white cloud. Those looking for a roughie could look no further than Jarkko Nieminen around the $20 mark, coming off an impressive week in Adelaide where he made the final. He won this event in 2006 and looks switched on to start the year in good fashion. Despite a tough draw we think he is the value runner of the field, especially with Ferrer not having competed for a couple of months.

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