ATP & WTA tennis tournament betting tips

Tournaments start Monday

ATP Dubai Championship

Amazon Prime, 10am
The locals are desperate for Roger Federer to secure his eighth Dubai Duty Free Championship victory but the title favourite has not been at his brilliant best this year.

Daniil Medvedev, Marin Cilic, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Milos Raonic, defending champion Roberto Bautista Agut and Karen Khachanov are next in the outright betting after the Swiss legend, but preference is for an interest in Borna Coric to go all the way this year.

The Croat, 22, remains a force on all surfaces and looks highly likely to continue making ground in bigger events such as this.

Coric suffered a close defeat to Bautista Agut in the last eight in Dubai last year and he has given Federer enough trouble – their personal series stands at two wins apiece – to suggest he could do the same should they clash in the United Arab Emirates.

Recommendation
B Coric
1pt 20-1 Sky Bet

ATP Abierto Mexicano

Amazon Prime, 10pm
If Rafael Nadal goes through with his intention to play in the Abierto Mexicano, the best tournament of the week is in Acapulco.

The problem is, that’s a big if given the Majorcan’s record of skipping important non-major hard-court events he had agreed to compete in.

Nadal played so well down under in January that there looks little to prevent him starring in Mexico, but he’s such a perfectionist that it could take only the slightest concern for him to pull out.

Because of that, the men’s singles is a nightmare for bookmakers to price up correctly.

Alexander Zverev, ranked one spot behind world number two Nadal, is an obvious alternative outright option for punters, but some of the top players use the event as a stepping stone to next month’s ATP Masters 1,000 bashes in Indian Wells and Miami.

Nick Kyrgios has been performing poorly and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him lose his opener against Andreas Seppi. John Isner may also not be at his peak after a blinding 2018 campaign, so that could afford title-winning opportunities to Stan Wawrinka and Alex de Minaur.

Taylor Fritz would have a chance, too, if stepping it up against his fellow Americans Sam Querrey and Isner. That’s far from certain to happen, of course, but at the available odds it may be worth taking a chance that it does.

Recommendation
T Fritz
1pt 50-1 bet365, RedZone

ATP Brazil Open

With the exception of Juan Ignacio Londero’s maiden victory in Cordoba, the clay-court Golden Swing in South America has been a pretty dire series and Diego Schwartzman and Nicolas Jarry have debunked to Acapulco this week to play on the hard courts.

The semi-finalists of last week’s 500 Series event in Rio de Janeiro were Laslo Djere, Aljaz Bedene, Uruguayan stalwart Pablo Cuevas and Felix Auger-Aliassime, so surely the ATP Tour has to look into the overblown status of that event.

The final clay-court event of the series, before the European swing starts in early April, takes place in Sao Paulo. The fact that the top two seeds are Joao Sousa and Malek Jaziri (it’s amazing the Tunisian isn’t competing in his beloved Dubai this week), the top Spaniard is Jaume Munar and the top Argentinians are Guido Pella and Leonardo Mayer tells you it’s pretty trite stuff.

Most of the competitors are exposed, but there still has to be a winner nonetheless. Thiago Monteiro would have a great shout but the Brazilian looks to be performing below his best, so instead chance Cuevas to get it right this time.

Recommendation
P Cuevas
1pt 15-2 Betfair, Paddy Power