Tennis betting tips: Preview and best bets for Monte-Carlo Masters

Tennis betting tips: Monte-Carlo Masters

0.5pt e.w. Jannik Sinner at 40/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes)

0.5pt e.w. Diego Schwartzman at 50/1 (Unibet)

0.25pt e.w. Cristian Garin at 250/1 (Unibet)

Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters

• Monte Carlo, Monaco (outdoor clay)

Neither man has played since the Australian Open almost two months ago, but is anyone really surprised to see Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic at the top of the market for this week’s Monte Carlo Masters?

Nadal, the greatest claycourter of all time, has won this title on 11 occasions, while Djokovic – with the possible recent exception of Dominic Thiem, who isn’t here – has long been his closest rival on this surface.

The Serb, twice a winner here, finished runner-up to Nadal at Roland Garros last season and a repeat of that showdown in Paris, including the final result, looks the most likely outcome this week.

Yet cases can be made against both players.

Admittedly, it’s harder when it comes to opposing 4/5 favourite Nadal, who tailors his season around the claycourt campaign which always starts here for the Spaniard.

He can nearly always be relied upon to hit the ground running once his feet are back on his beloved clay, which he’s been training on for a few weeks. The draw has also been kind to him, offering up a couple of early matches which should pose him few problems.

However, one thing you can say this year is his preparation has been like no other.

In the past, he’s usually played Indian Wells and/or Miami in the weeks prior to Monte Carlo but this time he’s had almost two months without a match.

The closest comparison to this year is his 2018 campaign which saw him nobbled by injury in Australia and he was out of action for more than two months.

Still, even on that occasion he arrived with a couple of matches under his belt having played a Davis Cup tie (on clay) shortly before Monte Carlo. He duly won the tournament.

Another potential argument against Nadal is that he’s ‘only’ won this event three times in his last seven visits with his losses coming against Fabio Fognini, Djokovic (twice) and David Ferrer. Three of those came before the final.

What we can say from that is it has taken a very good clay player to beat him but I’m not sure there are too many in his bottom half of the draw who will fancy their chances.

The strongest case to be made is probably about DIEGO SCHWARTZMAN, the man who beat Nadal in ultra-slow conditions in Rome last autumn.

Notably, it’s forecast to be damp (at times) and cool this week with temperatures struggling to get above 15C. Such slow, heavy conditions won’t help Nadal’s fearsome top spin but then again he showed at Roland Garros in October that he was still capable of beating all-comers in such circumstances.

Schwartzman has already won a title on clay this year, in Buenos Aires, when he managed to put a knee problem to one side.

He’s not got a great record in Monte Carlo but did make the quarter-finals in 2017 when Nadal proved too good. They could meet in this year’s semis.

Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev are others with the potential to trouble Nadal but I’m not convinced either is at the stage of being ready to challenge the GOAT on this surface.

Rublev was a winner on clay in Hamburg last season but, barring one win over Thiem, he’s yet to beat the very best on the red dirt.

I’ll therefore have a small-stakes punt on Schwartzman at 50/1 each way.

In the top half, Djokovic looks more vulnerable.

Since his last title win in 2015, the world number one has not been past the quarter-finals, losing to Jiri Vesely, David Goffin, Thiem and Medvedev.

And if he was hoping to get some easy clay matches under his belt in the early rounds, then he’s been left disappointed.

Djokovic’s first match looks likely to be against teenage star JANNIK SINNER, the recent Miami finalist who knows how to play on clay. Sinner will first have to get past another decent clay sort in Albert Ramos-Vinolas, who is fresh off making the semis in Marbella.

Miami winner Hubert Hurkacz or 2019 Monte Carlo runner-up Dusan Lajovic could follow, with Alex Zverev seeded as Djokovic's quarter-final foe. The German is in the same section of the draw as Goffin. Stefanos Tsitsipas will await in the last four if the seedings play out.

That’s a tough draw on what is Djokovic’s least-favoured surface. He does have a decent record against Nadal on clay, winning five of their last 11, but I think he’s too short this week at 5/2.

I’ll instead take him on with 40/1 Sinner, who reached his first Masters 1000 final in Miami where the mental side of his game rightly earned much praise. It certainly hurt this column – Sinner coming back from difficult situations in both the second and third sets to take out our 33/1 each-way tip Roberto Bautista Agut in the semis.

Other facets of the teenage Italian’s game continue to improve all the time and he’ll head onto the clay with good memories of last year still fresh in the memory.

He defeated Tsitsipas in Rome before reaching the quarter-finals at Roland Garros where he dismantled Goffin, beat Zverev in four sets and then pushed Nadal as hard as anyone did that fortnight before losing 7-6 6-4 6-1.

Of course, there’s every chance he loses to Djokovic but that match, their first, is about as hard it could be for the top seed given it will be his first on clay for six months and his first of any sort for two.

For a really big price, I’ll also nibble the 250/1 about CRISTIAN GARIN, who I rate as one of the better players on clay.

He is in the second quarter along with Tsitsipas, a semi-finalist at Roland Garros, who is favourite to come through this section.

However, the Greek has an awkward start to his clay campaign, opening against either Lorenzo Musetti (already bedded in on clay) or Aslan Karatsev, who has been winning matches for fun this season and last year claimed two Challenger titles on this surface.

Garin could follow in the next round.

The Chilean has five clay titles on his CV, including one earlier this season in Santiago.

That was admittedly a much weaker field than this but it showed he’s more than capable on the surface with only one set dropped all week.

Many South American players tend to struggle to transfer their best tennis to Europe but Garin was champion in Munich in 2019.

He’s now being coached by Franco Davin, who guided Juan Martin del Potro to the US Open title, and this is very much the part of the season he’ll have been focusing on.

Garin’s stats on this surface in 2020, which included two titles, were impressive. He was sixth for return games won on clay, while his often underrated serve also reaped rewards – he was in the top 15 for service games won and top 10 for first-serve points won.

He’s got a tough opener against Felix Auger-Aliassime but I’m surprised to see him as the underdog there and if he can come through that then he’ll likely have a shot at Tsitsipas, who has played four events since the Australian Open without winning any.

Odds of 250/1 look a little disrespectful to me.

In short, not the best betting week – I really wouldn’t be surprised to see the top two in the betting reach the final – so I’ll keep stakes small and hope that any chinks in the big guns’ armour can be fully exposed and subsequently capitalised upon.

Published at 1900 BST on 10/04/21

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