2009 Men's Australian Open Odds

The 2009 Australian Open, the first Grand Slam championship of the season, begins in Melbourne on Monday. Last year, the trio of World No. 1 Rafael Nadal, No. 2 Roger Federer and No. 3 Novak Djokovic accounted for all four Grand Slam titles though World No. 4 Andy Murray made some major strides to reach his first career Grand Slam final at the US Open.

Murray finished second on the ATP World Tour with a career-high five titles, trailing only Nadal's eight while Federer and Djokovic each won four titles.

Murray went a red-hot 35-6 record from Wimbledon through the rest of the year and kicked off this season with a repeat title effort in Doha just last week, defeating Federer in the semifinals and Roddick in the final.

In addition to Murray’s rise up the rankings, 2008

In 2008, the average age of players in the year-end Top 10 was 23.8 years, the youngest average of that group in 15 years (23.1). There were

Also saw four new additions to the Top 10 - No. 4 Andy Murray, No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, No. 7 Gilles Simon and No. 9 Juan Martin del Potro. Murray and Tsonga also broke through to reach their first Grand Slam final with runner-up efforts at the US Open and Australian Open, respectively.

Here is a look at the 2009 Men’s Australian Open Odds in the BetUS Sportsbook, followed by my in-depth analysis and 2009 Aussie Open predictions.

Roger Federer +250

Rafael Nadal +250

Novak Djokovic +550

Andrew Murray +225

Jo Wilfried Tsonga +1400

Juan Martin Del Potro +3000

Andy Roddick +4000

Richard Gasquet +5000

David Nalbandian +3000

Ernests Gulbis +3000

Fernando Gonzalez +10000

David Ferrer +10000

James Blake +10000

Marin Cilic +10000

Lleyton Hewitt +10000

Marcos Baghdatis +10000

Tomas Berdych +10000

Mario Ancic +15000

Stanislas Wawrinka +10000

Marat Safin +12500

Mikhail Youzhny +15000

Janko Tipsarevic +12500

Gael Monfils +4000

Robin Soderling +12500

Tommy Haas +12500

Tommy Robredo +15000

Gilles Simon +4000

Nikolay Davydenko

Analysis: Okay BetUS tennis fanatics, after correctly picking the men’s winner of the 2008 Australian Open nearly six weeks prior to the tournament, your boy E Dubya is back again, this time with what I hope will be another winning selection, although it will certainly be decidedly tougher this time around.

Semifinals: I’m going on record right now to say that one of the World’s Top 4 of Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray will not reach the semifinal round this year and it’s going to be Nadal people.

Having said that, I fully expect the ‘other’ top three players in the world to reach the semifinals along with …. ‘Mr. Float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-bee’ Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, last year’s runner-up at the Aussie.

Everyone knows Tsonga’s got the game. However, if you don’t ride Tsonga early, mid-to-late season injuries always seem to slow down this gifted player.

Finals: I’ll keep it simple and say that I like Federer and the blossoming Murray to reach the finals this year, although I am certain it’s going to take a huge effort to make Djokovic disappear from the tournament.