The Australia Open proper starts today and hopefully an opportunity to claw back some of the football losses over the weekend. A lot of action to choose from but i like the odds on Sandgren who has been on fire this past week.

Making his Aussie Open debut last year, Sandgren had a dream run to the quarter finals, beating the likes of Wawrinka and Marterer. If his performance at last week's Auckland Open is anything to go by, he could go on another good Aussie Open run again this year. He was dominant - never dropping a service game all tournament long, beating impressive opponents like Kohschreiber along the way.

Nishioka is in pretty good form as well. Last week's Sydney Open saw him enter as a qualifier and ultimately reach the quarterfinals where he lost to Schwartzmann, a top-20 player. On his day, Nishioka's a terrific player but the reality is that he has been hindered by knee injuries and never really reached the heights of some of the other Asian players like Nishikori and Hyeon Chung.

So, who to choose between two players playing the tennis of their lives? From the games i saw last week, Sandgren's all action style of tennis is just about unstoppable if he can keep it up for three sets. Sandgren starts of as the underdog in this match, given that he has had two days less rest but from all the interviews i've read about how he worked hard in the off-season in order to get a good Aussie Open run, i think he'll be up for this match. The odds are pretty tasty too.

Pick: Sandgren ML @ 2.159