The ATP Tour heads to Barcelona and Munich this week and Andy Schooler has highlighted three value-based picks.
Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour
1pt e.w. Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Barcelona Open at 14/1 (bet365, William Hill)
1pt e.w. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the Barcelona Open at 16/1 (William Hill)
1pt e.w. Flavio Cobolli in the BMW Open at 33/1 (William Hill)
0.5pt e.w. Zizou Bergs in the BMW Open at 28/1 (General)
Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell
- Barcelona, Spain (outdoor clay)
Pre-tournament favourite Carlos Alcaraz emerged as the Monte-Carlo Masters champion on Sunday – less than 24 hours before his next event gets under way.
As a Spaniard, Alcaraz is under pressure to play in Barcelona, which is at a lower level than Mont n-Carlo and the forthcoming Masters 1000s in Madrid and Rome.
It makes for a packed schedule and with the reigning French Open champion having never gone deep in Monte Carlo prior to this year, it’s hard to know how he’ll cope with the demands.
Alcaraz has won his last 10 matches here, sweeping to the title in both 2022 and 2023, and he is a worthy favourite.
However, the fatigue issue shouldn’t simply be dismissed, while Alcaraz wasn’t exactly dominant in Monte Carlo.
Three of his five matches went to a final set and he was a set down in all of those.
In short, I don’t want to get involved at close to even money, especially given four other top-10 players are in this strong field, plus several other notables.
However, the man Alcaraz beat in Sunday’s final, Lorenzo Musetti, won’t be among them.
I have massive regrets about not backing the Italian last week.
I’d actually written about five paragraphs about why Musetti was a good bet before deleting them and going with Holger Rune instead. Rune duly withdrew after the first set of his opening match due to illness. I know I shouldn’t but I suspect I’ll be thinking about that decision for months.
Five of Musetti’s of his six matches went the distance and so it was no surprise to see him withdraw from this event.
Of the other leading contenders, it’s hard to confident about defending champion Casper Ruud after last week’s loss to Alexei Popyrin.
I felt a return to the clay would serve the Norwegian well but instead he became my umpteenth outright tip this season to lose from match point up.
Andrey Rublev was another to flop in Monte Carlo and you wonder if it will take a while before the ideas of new coach Marat Safin are able to be implemented to good effect.
Rune has potential, if he’s over his illness, while Alex de Minaur played well last week.
However, if you are backing one of the market leaders it’s probably STEFANOS TSITSIPAS you want to be on.
He’s made the final here four times in the past and came within a point of the title when facing Rafael Nadal in the 2021 decider.
Tsitsipas also has a strong record in Monte Carlo where he was going well last week having gone 6-1 up on Musetti in their quarter-final.
It went downhill from there but the Greek had his chances, creating no fewer than 17 break points in that contest but converting only three. The match also saw him land only 49% of his first serves in play so a little improvement on both fronts could easily have changed the outcome.
Essentially, Tsitsipas played pretty well and should be all the better for that outing.
The big concern for anyone backing him at 14/1 is his awful record against Alcaraz, who is his seeded semi-final opponent.
Alcaraz leads 6-0 and has won 10 of the 11 sets they’ve played on clay.
It’s been a season of what might have been so far so I’m concerned about another semi-final loser.
However, despite the Musetti mess I got myself into, the only way I can really see out of this 2025 hole is to keep applying the approach which has delivered in the past.
2024 was a profitable year and one based on getting some decent-sized value picks over the line.
And so the question should be ‘is Tsitsipas overpriced?’ and I’d suggest he is.
Given his record here, 14s is worth a small interest.
Further applying the value theory, I’m tempted by ALEJANDRO DAVIDOVICH FOKINA here.
The Spaniard is enjoying a fine season and has already delivered some strong results on the hardcourts.
After making the last 16 of the Australian Open, where he beat Felix Auger-Aliassime, ADF went on to make the final in both Delray Beach (where he should have beaten Miomir Kecmanovic) and Acapulco.
He was able to transfer that form onto the clay in Monte Carlo where Ben Shelton, Tomas Martin Etcheverry, Jack Draper and the aforementioned Popyrin were all beaten before eventually champ Alcaraz proved too good in the last four, winning 7-6 6-4.
In Barcelona, he’ll open against wild card Stan Wawrinka in a quarter which could easily open up.
Rublev is the highest-ranked seed here – he’s lost four of his last five matches following a heavy defeat to Arthur Fils last week – while Frances Tiafoe is also in this section, having been moved in following Musetti’s withdrawal.
Davidovich Fokina made the quarter-finals here in 2023 before running into Alcaraz.
He can’t meet his compatriot here until the final and, at 16/1, I think he’s a spot of each-way value.
BMW Open
- Munich, Germany (outdoor clay)
The field in Munich can’t hold a flame to Barcelona’s with Alex Zverev the only top-10 player entered, while only four of the top 20 will be involved.
It’s therefore no surprise to see the top seed and home hope chalked up as favourite.
Neither should it be a surprise to hear I’ve no intention of backing the German at a short price.
After an opening-round defeat to Monte Carlo, Zverev is now just 6-6 since reaching the Australian Open final, including 3-3 on clay.
Admittedly, Zverev has won here twice before, although you have to go back to 2018 for his last title in Munich. Since then, he’s won only three of his eight matches at the tournament.
From those figures, it’s not unfair to suggest that an event that meant a great deal to a young upcoming German, probably doesn’t quite hold the appeal it once did.
While looking for alternatives, it’s worth remembering there’s a decent amount of altitude in play in Munich, which is around 500m above sea level.
That helps the ball fly through the air that bit faster.
Another factor to consider is the weather.
It’s often been really cold here in April with snow being seen on occasions. However, that won’t be the case this year, according to the forecast, with temperatures tipped to get as high as 24C by the middle of the week before falling back to the teens.
Basically, it will likely play faster than we’ve often seen in the past.
That may favour a player who has made a decent impact on the tour in 2025 and that’s ZIZOU BERGS.
The Belgian made the final in Auckland at the start of the season and then reached the semis in Marseille.
In Miami, he defeated both Nuno Borges and Rublev and I’m prepared to put a qualifying loss to Fabian Marozsan in Monte Carlo to one side.
After all, that was his first claycourt match of the season and it’s not as if he’s been a big struggler on the surface.
Clay titles have been won on the Challenger Tour, while last season he made the last 32 at Roland Garros before returning there for the Olympics and taking a set off Stefanos Tsitsipas.
In terms of altitude, it’s worth noting that Bergs made the quarter-finals in Gstaad, as a qualifier, in 2023.
His draw also looks good with Ugo Humbert and Denis Shapovalov the two seeds in Bergs’ quarter.
Both men dislike the clay and I wouldn’t be surprised were they to lose to Nicolas Jarry and Gael Monfils respectively in round one.
This is also Zverev’s half of the draw so this looks a decent chance for someone at a big price to come through and reach the final.
I’ll take a small punt on it being Bergs at 28/1.
In the opposite half, one led by Ben Shelton, I’m going to side with FLAVIO COBOLLI.
The Italian hit the European clay earlier than most and a return to his favourite surface paid immediate dividends with his disappointing hardcourt form reversed as he claimed the title in Bucharest.
Given the efforts of that run, it was no surprise to see him beaten fairly early in Monte Carlo (by Arthur Fils).
That will at least have given him some decent preparation time in Munich where the altitude shouldn’t be too much of a problem – Cobolli reached the semis in Geneva last season, a venue at a similar height.
The Italian will open against a qualifier before a tricky test against either defending champion Jan-Lennard Struff or Argentine Francisco Cerundolo.
However, that’s a match Cobolli is more than capable of winning and were he to do so, this half could open right up.
Shelton prefers a faster court than this, even if the weather keeps things warm, and can be taken on in this section.
At a best price of 33/1, Cobolli gets the nod.
Posted at 2245 BST on 13/04/25
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