Tennis betting tips: ATP Finals Tuesday best bets

Tennis betting tips: ATP Finals daily best bets

1.5pts Alex de Minaur to beat Daniil Medvedev at 11/10 (bet365, Betfair, BoyleSports)

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Daniil Medvedev v Alex de Minaur (1300 GMT)

I not sure anyone who watched Medvedev’s opening-match defeat to Taylor Fritz would be keen on backing him as an odds-on favourite here.

As was the case in Paris recently, Medvedev was double-faulting for fun, three in a row costing him the first set.

After that, he cut a disinterested figure and his post-match comments very much fitted that profile.

He bemoaned the heavy balls, saying “everyone can stay in the rally with me right now” after Fritz did a great job of breaking him down from the baseline.

“Every practice is a struggle. Every match is a struggle.

“Now I feel zero pleasure of being on the court.”

He added he “100%” wanted the season to end and said that if things didn’t work against De Minaur, he would be “happy to be out”, while in an interview in Russian he admitted a lack of “desire” and said he wasn’t sure he’d rediscover it this year.

De Minaur’s attitude was somewhat different following his widely expected defeat to top seed Jannik Sinner.

He had lost seven times out of seven to the Italian, who made it eight straight wins on Sunday night, although only after De Minaur had made a bright start.

The Australian was looking forward to better things after that loss, saying: “Jannik was the only player in the group who I hadn't had a win against. The rest of the players I've had some success against. Now I'm not playing the No. 1 in the world anymore, I'll be looking forward to that."

There were positives for De Minaur to take from that performance and the fact is Medvedev does not possess the power of Sinner, who crunched one forehand at 100mph in that contest.

In fact, de Minaur is exactly the sort of grinder who can live with Medvedev in those long exchanges he was bemoaning.

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OK, Medvedev does lead the head-to-head 6-3, but De Minaur has improved over the past 12 months and it’s not hard to suggest Medvedev has gone the other way.

Certainly his serve hasn’t been as effective as in the past, while double faults have been an issue of late.

With De Minaur one of the best returners in the game – he’s lead the ATP Tour this season for return games won and, notably, points won returning second serve – it may be a problem again in this contest.

Sadly, Medvedev’s DF line has climbed from 3.5 to 5.5 in the wake of his opening-day defeat.

That may still interest some – he’s served 8 and 14 in his last two matches - but my advice here is just to keep things simple and back De Minaur to win at odds-against.

Jannik Sinner v Taylor Fritz (1930 GMT)

For all Medvedev’s foibles, I was pretty impressed by Fritz’s performance on Sunday and was a little tempted to get with him in some way in this match.

He was very impressive from the back of the court, often breaking Medvedev down and drawing the error from the Russian’s racquet.

His more traditional weapon, the serve, went unbroken and he won 85% of points behind his first delivery.

However, this is clearly a tougher test and it was notable that Sinner got an awful lot of returns in play against Alex de Minaur. He was also dominant on serve, losing on 10 points behind it as his second deal held up well.

There’s also the memory of the US Open final lingering – Sinner dominated that day in New York, posting a straight-sets win. That’s rather off-putting for Fritz fans.

That said, Sinner was feeling his abdomen at times during his victory on Sunday, albeit little was said about it in the aftermath.

That’s the sort of problem which could affect a player on serve and so perhaps this is one to watch in-play.

As I said at the start, backing Fritz in some way is tempting – the game handicap line is set at 4.5, while a 2-1 Sinner win was considered at 17/5.

Still, that US Open clash is still very fresh in the mind, while my outright verdict showed how keen I am on Sinner this week.

In short, I’ll leave this one alone.

Posted at 2100 GMT on 11/11/24

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