Free tennis betting preview and tips: Andy Schooler previews ATP Tour's Western and Southern Open

Recommended bets

2pts win Daniil Medvedev at 9/1

1pt e.w. Matteo Berrettini at 35/1

Western and Southern Open

• Flushing Meadows, New York, USA (outdoor hard)

At last, ATP tennis is back. But, hang on a minute, what now?

After six months without tour-level competition, it’s certainly tricky trying to predict what’s about to unfold.

Clearly what isn’t going to happen is that every player simply returns to the form level they were at when the curtain was brought down on tour by the COVID-19 pandemic in March.

For a start, several have opted not to compete in the virus hot-spot which is the USA, including Rafael Nadal.

Those who will compete from Saturday in this Masters 1000 tournament – moved from its regular home in Cincinnati to New York to keep players in a bio-secure ‘bubble’ ahead of the forthcoming US Open – have endured wildly different periods of ‘lockdown’.

Some have spent that period in multiple countries, playing against some of the world’s best players on a regular basis – think Dominic Thiem.

Others, however, have been largely stuck in their home nation with a very limited range of opponent to play or even practise with.

The former group should have a considerable advantage this week, and potentially in weeks to come.

Another trait I’m looking for in a potential champion is the ability to start fast after a break.

Granted, not too many players have previously had a gap of six months between matches but the off-season does provide some sort of yardstick on this count.

A track record of wins at Flushing Meadows, home of the US Open, would be a bonus, although far from essential given a new surface has been introduced this year.

Gone is the DecoTurf II from the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center where the courts are now Laykold, the surface having only been laid earlier this month.

Laykold is also the surface at the Miami Open where it has tended to play slower than in New York, although the Florida humidity also has plenty to do with that. Early indications from qualifying suggest the courts are playing fairly fast and they will likely speed up the more they are played on.

2020 tour form is not completely irrelevant, but punters need to remember it was a considerable time ago, while a final factor worth considering is the fact that this tournament ends just three days before the US Open, one of the four Grand Slam events, gets under way.

Normally the star names would not be in action in such a week but so desperate are they for match play that all the US Open contenders are in attendance. While there’s a chance some could begin to worry about fatigue if they go deep, this concern is much lower than it normally would be.

So, having set the scene and given some indication of the type of player we’re looking for, who is actually going to make the staking plan?

Well, first up is Russian DANIIL MEDVEDEV, who ticks plenty of the aforementioned boxes.

While he has been absent from the top exhibition events of the past few months, the Russian is a renowned fast-starter.

He’s regularly produced the goods at the start of a season. In 2017 his big breakthrough at tour level came when he finished runner-up in Chennai. The following January he won the title in Sydney and in 2019 he began his campaign by reaching the Brisbane final.

This season he flew out of the blocks, posting a 4-1 win-loss record at the ATP Cup, his one defeat coming 6-4 in a deciding set against world number one Novak Djokovic.

Medvedev also returns to New York with plenty of happy memories from his last visit.

He made the final of last year’s US Open, only losing in a fifth set to Nadal – the culmination of a superb run on the North American hardcourts which saw him win this very title, albeit in Cincinnati.

Medvedev has been drawn into a decent-looking quarter – Roberto Bautista Agut is the other top-eight seed in the section – although the problem could be Djokovic, who is also in the top half.

That said, as well as pushing the Serb the distance in Australia in January, Medvedev won two of their three meetings in 2019, including on the Cincinnati hardcourts, and the 24-year-old’s awkward game style is more than capable of causing the top seed problems.

Djokovic is admittedly a worthy favourite – he won all 18 matches he played on the tour before lockdown.

But significantly he’s since had COVID-19, a result of his ill-fated Adria Tour. And remember this is a player who has had breathing issues in the past.

I’m clearly not a virologist but I have major concerns about backing any player who has contracted this virus, especially when they are odds-on with most firms.

Grigor Dimitrov, another who tested positive after the Adria Tour events, has spoken openly about his worries, talking about the “uncertainty” the virus has brought to his life.

Speaking at the start of August, he said: “Hopefully in a month or so I’ll be back at full force to do everything and there won’t be any further repercussions after.”

You only have had to watch the news to know many of those who have had the virus have struggled with fatigue issues so right now Djokovic may be the best tennis player in the world (and clearly a very fit athlete) but he’s not getting near my coupon at the price.

Down in the bottom half, there’s much to like about Dominic Thiem, who very much lived up to his busy-bee reputation during the past few months.

Always one of the more active players on tour, he didn’t disappoint with his exhibition appearances, playing in the Austrian Pro Series, Adria Tour, Ultimate Tennis Showdown, his own Thiem’s 7 event and the Bett1Aces events in Germany last month.

He described his hardcourt victory over Jannik Sinner in the latter as “the best I’ve played in the last four months”. Since then, he’s rested up and should be raring to go.

No player in this field has played top-quality opposition as often as Thiem in the last six months so the Australian Open runner-up should be well prepared.

But the second favourite’s draw is a tricky one with Filip Krajinovic an awkward test first up – the Serb beat Djokovic in June, one of several decent wins at the exhos.

Andrey Rublev, another who has been in fine form and almost made the staking plan, or Alex Zverev would be a tough quarter-final test.

I prefer to head to the third quarter where there’s much to like about MATTEO BERRETTINI’s chances.

Like Thiem, the Italian has been out and about plenty on the exho circuit – something evidenced by the fact he played on three different surfaces in three different countries during a four-day period last month.

Notably, the Italian won the month-long UTS event (on hardcourt), beating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.

He also competed on clay at Thiem’s 7, beating Bautista Agut twice, and grass at the Bett1Aces event.

Berrettini should be more battle-hardened than most and he returns to the place where he made a big breakthrough last season – he reached the semi-finals of the US Open in 2019.

With his big serve he, like Medvedev, won’t mind if the new surface plays pretty quick and at 35/1 he looks a decent outside shout.

Another clash with Tsitsipas could arrive in the quarter-finals, while Thiem is a potential semi-final foe. However, their head-to-head stands at 2-2 with the Italian having won the only previous meeting on outdoor hard (in Shanghai last season).

Posted at 1520 BST on 21/08/20

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