Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour previews and best bets

Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour

2pts win Grigor Dimitrov in the BNP Paribas Nordic Open at 11/2 (General)

0.5pt e.w. Christopher O’Connell in the Almaty Open at 33/1 (Betfred)

0.5pt e.w. Alexander Shevchenko in the Almaty Open at 22/1 (General)

0.5pt e.w. Arthur Rinderknech in the European Open at 28/1 (General)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Almaty Open

• Almaty, Kazakhstan (indoor hard)

You are going to hear a lot about some of tennis’ biggest names this week but they won’t be competing on the ATP Tour.

The ‘Six Kings Slam’ has attracted Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune to, you guessed it, Saudi Arabia.

Each player will reportedly take home at least US$1.5million, while the winner will claim the biggest prize pot in the sport’s history - $6million a figure which dwarfs the cheque written out to a Grand Slam champion.

Djokovic and Nadal both need only to win two matches to claim the jackpot.

Like most things involving sport and the Saudis, it’s a powerplay, one they hope will lead to more – I’ve long felt a LIV-style takeover of tennis is pretty much inevitable.

Whatever the future holds, things don’t look good for many of the ATP Tour’s smaller events, three of which take place this week in the shadow of the action unfolding in Riyadh.

Losing such events would be a sad day – especially for tennis punters.

We once again saw last week how hard it can be to get the top players beat at the Masters 1000 events with our 30/1 pick Taylor Fritz making the semis only to run into Novak Djokovic, who then faced fellow big gun Jannik Sinner in the final.

The 250s have long offered much greater value – we landed a nice 14/1 winner in Chengdu recently – and so there’s plenty to be enthused about this week.

Let’s start in Almaty, a new destination for the tour – essentially this tournament has moved across Kazakhstan from Astana where it had been played for the last four years.

There’s a considerable change in altitude – they are now playing 760m above sea level so the balls should zip through the air.

The court speed should also be pretty slick, if organisers have got things right.

A portable Rebound Ace has been chosen (they played on GreenSet in Astana) with its court pace rating being medium-fast.

Adrian Mannarino is a player who should be well suited to conditions here – and he won last year in Astana.

Notably, seven of his 15 ATP finals have come in the post-US Open period of the season. He also won in Sofia towards the end of last season too.

However, to back Mannarino right now you have to be able to look beyond current form.

Earlier this year he went on a run of one win in 18 matches. He has emerged from that in recent times and the good news is there have been a few decent wins of late.

Read positively into that and you can say that Mannarino is heading into what has traditionally been a good period of the year for him in much finer fettle.

However, the fact remains that he’s not won three matches in succession since February and even to reward his each-way backers at 28/1 this week, he’ll need to win four, including a tricky-looking opener against Roman Safiullin, who has been playing well during the Asian swing, losing to players who made the final of the event in question, namely Jerry Shang, Sinner and Djokovic.

Mannarino is 2-0 up in the head-to-head though.

I do feel the winner of this match has a decent chance of going deep, although there’s no doubt in my mind this is the much tougher section of the draw with top seed Frances Tiafoe and bookies’ favourite Tomas Machac also present.

Preference is therefore to head to the bottom half of the draw where the seeded players all look opposable.

Second seed Alejandro Tabilo may have won in Auckland and Mallorca this season but I still can’t be backing him to win in what should be quick conditions, particularly when he’s high up the market at around 10/1.

Francisco Cerundolo is another who would much rather be playing on a slower court than this. The same can be said of Fabian Marozsan, while Zhizhen Zhang arrives here having lost three on the spin, and that in his homeland.

I will therefore try to find a big-priced finalist in this section and will start with CHRISTOPHER O’CONNELL.

The Australian looks in decent enough form having won on the Challenger Tour in Guangzhou last month and following that up by pushing top seed Lorenzo Musetti to a final-set tie-break when they met in Chengdu, another altitude venue where conditions are quick.

O’Connell also won three matches (including qualifying) in Tokyo before narrowly losing to Matteo Berrettini in Shanghai, the former Wimbledon finalist winning in two tie-breaks.

O’Connell made quarter-finals in Munich and Marrakech last season, both venues well above sea level, and so I think he’s worth a small interest at 33s in what looks a pretty weak fourth quarter.

• CLICK HERE to back O'Connell with Sky Bet

In quarter three, I’m going to side with ALEXANDER SHEVCHENKO.

He switched his allegiance to Kazakhstan earlier this year and I suspect he’ll be keen to make an impact in what will be his first appearance on ‘home’ soil.

Last week in Shanghai he beat Cerundolo – the pair could meet in the last eight again here – before losing to Jahuk Mensik in three sets, a result given more shine when you consider the Czech also defeated Andrey Rublev and Grigor Dimitrov before losing in three sets to Djokovic in the quarter-finals.

Shevchenko has shown a propensity for indoor hardcourts, with two of his best results of the season coming in Montpellier and Rotterdam (quarter-finals), while he ended 2023 by reaching the final in Metz.

In short, there’s enough to like to be taking a punt on Shevchenko at odds of 22/1.

• CLICK HERE to back Shevchenko with Sky Bet

BNP Paribas Nordic Open

• Stockholm, Sweden (indoor hard)

The best tournament of the week in terms of player quality takes place in Stockholm, where we landed the 20/1 winner (Gael Monfils) 12 months ago.

The top four seeds all come from the world’s top 13 and that almost inevitably means that these are players with plenty to play for.

Andrey Rublev, Casper Ruud, GRIGOR DIMITROV and Tommy Paul all need the 250 ranking points on offer to the winner as they chase a place in the field for the season-ending ATP Finals.

Ruud and Rublev currently sit just inside the cut line but Dimitrov and Paul could both shake things up this week and both are former champions of this event.

I much prefer their chances to Rublev and Ruud’s.

Rublev arrives following back-to-back losses in China to Bu Yunchaokete and Jakub Mensik, while Ruud has lost his last four matches and hasn’t beaten a top-40 player since the Olympics. You have to go back to Miami in March for his last such victory off his favoured clay.

My preference is to back Dimitrov.

He played really well in this period of the season 12 months ago and, as well as being a former champion in Stockholm, he’s also made two other finals.

The Bulgarian made the quarter-finals of the US Open and has since won his only match at the Laver Cup and lost in the last 16 of Shanghai to the aforementioned Mensik, who was playing exceptionally well.

Matteo Berrettini looks the biggest danger in Dimitrov’s quarter but the Italian isn’t back to top form yet and the Plexipave courts are only of average speed so won’t be aiding his big serve massively.

He’s not the greatest price in the world but Dimitrov likes playing indoors and should be driven on by that ATP Finals carrot – at 33, he’ll know he won’t have too many more chances to qualify for an event he famously won back in 2017.

I’ll back him to reign in Stockholm again.

• CLICK HERE to back Dimitrov with Sky Bet

European Open

• Antwerp, Belgium (indoor hard)

They’ve always played on GreenSet since Antwerp came onto the tour in 2016 and the stats show the courts play on the fast side.

The recent roll of honour reflects that with Alexander Bublik, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Jannik Sinner and Ugo Humbert being the last four champions.

It’s also a venue I associate with the big breakthrough of Stefanos Tsitsipas, who made the semis here at the age of 19 in 2017.

The Greek, who also reached the last four last season, is back for more, knowing he needs ranking points in that ‘Race to Turin’.

However, he hasn’t made a final since Barcelona in April and I see little value in his price which is around the 9/2 mark.

Top seed Alex de Minaur – a similar price - is also eyeing those ATP Finals, although I’d suggest he may also be struggling to qualify.

It’s been a fine season for the Australian. Or rather it had been.

He suffered injury blows at both Wimbledon and the US Open and hasn’t played since the latter.

It’s not hard to suggest he’s rushing back to play the final three weeks of the season in a bid to make it the season-ending finale for the first time in his career.

He did make the final here four years ago but even with a decent-looking draw, it’s asking a lot for De Minaur to win here having played just one tournament since Wimbledon.

If the winner isn’t coming from the top two seeds, then who could become champion?

Auger-Aliassime holds good claims – all five of his ATP titles have come on indoor hard, four of them during this autumn period of the season.

But, as is so often the case, his price looks on the short side.

I’d much prefer to take a longer shot and will do so by heading to the bottom half of the draw, that of Tsitsipas.

In the third quarter, seeds Sebastian Baez and Marcos Giron hardly set the pulse racing so perhaps ARTHUR RINDERKNECH can take advantage.

The Frenchman admittedly hasn’t been in the greatest form, so this is a bet based on the potential for him to rediscover something better now he’s moving into conditions that suit.

Rinderknech is a former quarter-finalist in Antwerp, while earlier this season he reached the last eight in slick Marseille and won a Challenger title in Lille.

He’s also had good results in this part of the calendar in recent years, making the quarter-finals or better in Basel, Gijon and Stockholm.

A big first serve is a major part of the Rinderknech game and if that shot fires here, he looks capable of contending.

At 28/1, I think it’s worth paying to find out if he actually does.

• CLICK HERE to back Rinderknech with Sky Bet

Posted at 2020 BST on 13/10/24

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