Bedene should breeze past struggling Sousa

WTA Bucharest Open
BT Sport 2, midday Tuesday

Aljaz Bedene has had a productive clay season and the Briton, who is back in the top 50 of the ATP rankings, should make light work of Joao Sousa in the first round of the ATP Croatia Open.

Bedene won back-to-back Challenger Tour events earlier this year before finding Lucas Pouille too strong in the final of the Budapest Open.

Only Pouille, Milos Raonic, Novak Djokovic and Jiri Vesely have beaten Bedene on the clay in 2017 and he should enjoy being back on the surface, despite a respectable grass campaign that saw him defeated twice by Wimbledon quarter-finalist Gilles Muller.

Sousa has contested nine matches on the European clay this season, losing seven of them in straight sets. His rotten run continued with three consecutive grass defeats and Bedene looks likely to beat him with little difficulty.

In the WTA Gstaad Championship it could be worth backing Russia's Irina Khromacheva to get the best of Tereza Martincova.

The pair meet for the third time with the score level at 1-1 but both of those matches were played on a hard court and Khromacheva should have the edge on clay.

The 22-year-old reached a career-high ranking of 89 when she triumphed in an ITF event in Sao Paulo in the spring - winning her tenth lower-level clay title - and she can draw on memories of last year in Gstaad, where she reached the quarter-finals with victories over Lucie Hradecka and Julia Goerges.

Khromacheva virtually ignored the grass season, competing only at Wimbledon, and should be fresh against an opponent who has won just five of 12 clay-court matches this year.

Recommendations
A Bedene to win 2-0
1pt Evs general
I Khromacheva
2pts 5-6 Betfair