Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour preview and best bets for Swiss Indoors & Erste Bank Open
After another highly-profitable week which included 20/1 and 13/1 tournament winners, Andy Schooler returns to bring you his picks for this week’s ATP events in Basel and Vienna.
Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour
2pts win Sebastian Korda in the Swiss Indoors at 6/1 (BetVictor, Betfred)
0.5pt e.w. Dominic Stricker in the Swiss Indoors at 66/1 (Betfred)
2pts win Andrey Rublev in the Erste Bank Open at 9/1 (General)
Swiss Indoors
- Basel, Switzerland (indoor hard)
The big factor that’s in play this week is the looming ATP Finals.
Four spots in the eight-man season-finale remain up for grabs and the race looks a close one.
OK, Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas have probably done enough already to seal a ticket to Turin but Alex Zverev and Holger Rune – the men currently in seventh and eighth place in the year-long race - will likely be looking over their shoulder.
All four play this week, as well as all the other Finals contenders, who have ground to make up.
Of that quartet, only Rune is in Basel, a venue where he made the final a year ago.
However, the contrast between the Dane’s form then and now could not be much greater.
This time last year, Rune was in the middle of a storming run which would see him win 19 of 21 matches. Twelve months on, he arrives in Basel having won one of his last nine and has to be opposed.
On top of his dismal form, there’s a tricky opener to negotiate – Miomir Kecmanovic is fresh off a semi-final run in Stockholm where he beat Rune 7-6 6-2.
I would certainly not be surprised to see a repeat result.
Of those with that Turin carrot dangling in front of them, I’m not actually that enthused by many.
Taylor Fritz – the man one place outside the qualifying positions – lost early in both Shanghai and Tokyo, while Casper Ruud went only 5-3 during the Asia swing. It’s not as bad as much of his disappointing 2023 but it’s still not great.
I’m not massively keen on Alex de Minaur indoors (no ATP title; only two finals, the last in 2020) so the player from that group I’d be most keen on is Hubert Hurkacz.
Our 40/1 winner from Shanghai sits 11th in the Race to Turin so has a real shot at making those ATP Finals. He will, however, need another big performance either here or next week in Paris.
Conditions won’t be quite so favourable as in Shanghai though.
They play on a Greenset court in Basel and it’s fairly average in speed terms, although quick enough to help Roger Federer win here 10 times – this was the scene of his 103rd and final ATP title back in 2019. Can it really be four years?
That, a tricky-ish draw and a short price are reasons to put me off – as is the fact I actually fancy one of the other market leaders, SEBASTIAN KORDA.
The American was in fine form during the recent Asian swing, finishing runner-up in Astana and making the semi-finals of both the Shanghai Masters and the Zhuhai Championships.
Daniil Medvedev and Ben Shelton were among his victims in Shanghai and while the change of conditions again applies, Korda is more than capable of causing damage on a slightly slower hardcourt.
While this will be his Basel debut, Korda’s record indoors is a good one – three of his six ATP finals have come with a roof over his head. Two of those final appearances came during this autumn swing in 2022.
Korda is also in the top half and that looks the much weaker of the two to me with Rune, Fritz and Felix Auger-Aliassime (no SF since February) the other seeds.
Korda starts against Tomas Etcheverry, a player he’s dismissed in straight sets twice already this season. Andy Murray could follow – he leads their head-to-head 2-0 – and then Rune, who he’s yet to meet.
Only Kecmanovic holds a winning record over Korda in this quarter (1-0).
For some, I expect Korda’s odds of 6/1 will still be too short, but taking all those factors into consideration, I feel the American has a great chance this week and will back him accordingly.
As already highlighted, the bottom half looks much stronger and I could make a case for every player in the fourth quarter.
It contains Ruud, Nicolas Jarry, Adrian Mannarino and Ugo Humbert but the man I can’t resist at big odds is DOMINIC STRICKER.
The rising Swiss star is on home soil this week and will love playing in front of the big crowds in the St Jakobshalle.
The 21-year-old has already shown his propensity for the big stage, reaching the last 16 of the US Open a couple of months ago, while he also qualified for both Roland Garros and Wimbledon earlier this season.
Stricker’s record against the top players also proves how he loves the big matches – despite having only just broken into the top 100, he holds a 10-9 win-loss record against top-50 players.
Notably, three of those victories have come in his two tour-level events in his homeland – Stricker beat Marin Cilic and Marton Fucsovics en route to the Geneva quarter-finals in 2021, while last year in Basel he took out Maxime Cressy before losing a tight three-set battle against world number 15 Pablo Carreno Busta.
He’ll open against a qualifier this time around and, if he wins, will then face either the below-par Ruud or Alexander Bublik, likely to be feeling his final run in Antwerp where he, frankly, had a soft draw.
Stricker’s record in those big matches is enough for me to take a small-stakes punt at 66/1.
Erste Bank Open
- Vienna, Austria (indoor hard)
This week’s strongest field has gathered in Vienna where the court pace has increased since Rebound Ace replaced the sluggish Opticourt a few years back.
Daniil Medvedev won here last season and starts favourite this time around but you wonder if he’s going to be fully motivated.
The Russian has already secured his place in the ATP Finals, while next week the more lucrative Paris Masters takes place.
OK, winning both would be a great way to head into Turin but Medvedev also recently made the final in Beijing and his experience of 2019 may well be in the back of his mind.
That year, Medvedev was the best player in the second half of the year but cut a jaded figure by the time of the ATP Finals and duly lost all three of his group matches.
Second seed Jannik Sinner is in a similar boat.
He’s in good form having beaten Grigor Dimitrov, Carlos Alcaraz and then Medvedev to claim the China Open title. He was then only edged out in a final-set tie-break by Ben Shelton in Shanghai.
With Sinner also a decent indoor player, he’ll certainly have his backers this week but my preference is for someone with a little bit more motivation and that’s ANDREY RUBLEV.
A good run this week will be enough to secure his ATP Finals spot and the Russian certainly has the form to do it.
He played very well in Shanghai where reached the final without dropping a set and then held match point only to lose to Hubert Hurkacz.
Rublev knows what it takes to win here, having done so in 2020. That is one of six indoor titles on his CV.
Indeed, he’s won at least one in each of the last four seasons, although not yet in 2023.
He was crushing his groundstrokes to great effect in Shanghai and I don’t think he’ll fear his draw this week.
A possible quarter-final with Zverev lies in store but the German was beaten early in both Shanghai and Tokyo and simply isn’t at the top of his game right now.
Rublev has won both meetings with him in 2023, too.
Sinner would arguably be the tougher test in the semis but, at the price (9/1), I think Rublev is worth backing here.
If you are taking on Medvedev in the top half (and he’s got a tricky opener against Antwerp finalist Arthur Fils), I’m not sure the best way to do it is via the other seeds.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is 5-6 since winning the Los Cabos title in early August, while neither Tommy Paul nor Karen Khachanov is in the sort of form they’d want to be right now.
I quite like the look of Grigor Dimitrov, who caught the eye during the Asian swing, making semi-finals in Shanghai and Chengdu, and a quarter-final in Beijing.
He also reached the last four in Vienna last season.
However, I’m put off by two things – the fact he’s lost five of his last six to Medvedev (a potential second-round opponent) and, importantly, the price.
I had hoped to get more than 14/1 so I can leave him on this occasion and fully focus on Rublev.
Published at 1405 BST on 22/10/23
*Andy Schooler is away next week, so his next preview will be published on November 5.
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