ATP Dubai Championships & ATP Mexican Open predictions and tennis betting tips

Free tennis tips, predictions, best bets and analysis for this week's tournaments on the ATP Tour in Dubai and Acapulco.

Where to watch

Amazon Prime, 10am Monday

Best bets

Jannik Sinner to win Dubai Tennis Championships
1pt each-way 15-2 Coral, Betfair, Ladbrokes

Stefanos Tsitsipas to win ATP Mexican Open
1pt each-way 11-2 Coral, Ladbrokes

ATP Dubai Tennis Championships

World number one Novak Djokovic makes his much anticipated return to action in Dubai this week and the super Serb is a warm order at 8-13 to mark his 2022 debut with a victory.

Djokovic was forced to miss the Australian Open due to the high-profile saga involving Covid-19 travel restrictions and is yet to play competitively this year, although he is the strongest player in the field by some distance.

The 20-time Grand Slam champion has claimed this title on five occasions, but, even in this company, he doesn’t warrant being so short after such a lengthy layoff.

An opening game against Lorenzo Musetti is no gimme and the presence of Felix Auger-Aliassime, Andrey Rublev, Aslan Karatsev and Jannik Sinner should be enough to scare off odds-on backers.

Classy Canadian pair Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov are housed alongside Djokovic in the top half of the Dubai draw, so an each-way wager on Sinner could be the best play.

The rising Italian star made the quarter-finals of the Australian Open last time out, where he suffered a straight-sets defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas which he must prove he has recoverd from.

However, the 20-year-old claimed four titles in a successful 2021 campaign and a kind draw should allow him to go deep in Dubai.

A first-round meeting with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina is not straightforward but, if he comes through that unscathed, Sinner looks on course for a semi-final spot, making odds of 15-2 look generous from an each-way perspective.

ATP Mexican Open

The stars of the ATP Tour are also out in force in Mexico, with Australian Open hero Rafael Nadal and world number two Daniil Medvedev headlining the show in Acapulco.

Medvedev is rightly favourite given his hard-court heroics of recent years but Nadal is a three-time winner of this event and there are other dangers such as defending champion Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who was runner-up to the German last year.

Medvedev, Nadal and Matteo Berrettini feature in a star-studded top half, which makes Tsitsipas the value option.

The talented Greek made the final in Rotterdam just over a week ago and his draw couldn’t have been much kinder with Pablo Carreno Busta likely to provide his toughest test before the semi-finals.

Zverev would be a serious challenger in a last-four encounter but the German has some tricky tests to negotiate first - Jenson Brooksby is his first-round opponent while Carlos Alcaraz or Cameron Norrie should be waiting in round three.

Tsitsipas, who at 23 is already a seven-time winner on the ATP Tour, makes great each-way appeal at 11-2.

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