Monte Carlo Masters predictions, odds and tennis betting tips: Tsitsipas and Rune represent the value

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Live on Sky Sports Tennis & Main Event from midday Monday

Best bets

Stefanos Tsitsipas
0.5pt each-way 18-1 bet365

Holger Rune
0.5pt each-way 18-1 bet365

Monte Carlo Masters preview

All of the leading lights, with the exception of 11-time champion Rafael Nadal, head to the picturesque Roquebrune-Cap-Martin to compete in the Monte Carlo Masters and there is potential for a surprise champion to be crowned on Sunday week.

In what is first of three ATP Masters 1000 events to be played on the clay this season, Novak Djokovic returns to the fray having missed Miami after enduring a surprise third-round exit to Italian world number 75 Luca Nardi at Indian Wells.

Djokovic is bidding to take the title for a third time, having done so in 2013 and 2015, but he looks opposable given that tournament favourite Carlos Alcaraz, defending champion Andrey Rublev and two-time French Open runner-up Casper Ruud are in his half of the draw.

With the Serbian world number one having a point to prove, Alcaraz’s claims look crystal clear given that his likely quarter-final opponent Ruud may be feeling the exertions of challenging for silverware in Estoril this weekend.

But he has found his place at the head of the market, so searching for each-way value in the bottom half of the draw could be the approach to take.

Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner has been the man of the season to date but the Italian's recent improvement has come on hard courts, with only one of his 17 career titles having been collected on clay.

With Daniil Medvedev considered a hard-court specialist - he has made the last eight of the French Open on only one occasion - there are reasons to oppose those two seeds with Stefanos Tsitsipas and Holger Rune fitting the bill.

These are perfect conditions for Tsitsipas and he won back-to-back Monte Carlo Masters titles in 2021 and 2022 before bowing out in the last eight of his hat-trick bid against Taylor Fritz last season.

The Greek star, who also finished runner-up in the French Open to Djokovic in 2021, is in need of a revival but he is sure to get a hero's welcome on what is considered to be his favourite surface.

Seventh seed Rune finished runner-up to Rublev in last year’s Monte Carlo Masters and back-to-back French Open quarter-finals show the 20-year-old Dane to be a formidable force on the slower terrain.

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