Andy Schooler previews this week’s grasscourt action at London’s Queen’s Club and Halle in Germany.
Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour
1pt e.w. Ben Shelton in the HSBC Championships at 22/1 (bet365, BoyleSports, William Hill)
0.5pt e.w. Cameron Norrie in the HSBC Championships at 66/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Ugo Humbert in the Terra Wortmann Open at 33/1 (BetVictor, Betfred)
0.5pt e.w. Quentin Halys in the Terra Wortmann Open at 125/1 (William Hill)
HSBC Championships
- Queen’s Club, London, England (outdoor grass)
Long-term readers will know by now my approach to tennis outrights has long been to seek out the value.
Each season is different but, in the main, I’d say that over the years plenty of the picks have proved decent enough.
Inevitably with this approach, many end up losing in semi-finals – they find a way through a weaker section of the draw before coming up against better quality at the business end or, having landed the upset needed, don’t have the required consistency to profit. They were a big price for a reason, right?
Over time, I’ve learned that a season’s success largely depends on how those value picks perform in the ‘money match’ – if you are backing each-way, that’s those semi-finals.
Get a fairly high percentage of winners in such matches – as was the case with this column last season – and the profit will roll in. In contrast, lose the vast majority and by definition you're going to need more of those who do advance to go on and lift the trophy.
That absence of semi-final winners is 2025 in a nutshell.
Felix Auger-Aliassime was the latest semi-final loser for us last week in Stuttgart and now we hit the 500-level grasscourt events which means the big boys have come out to play.
The way Carlos Alcaraz, the top seed here, and Jannik Sinner (more on him below) played at the French Open, you wonder whether it’s worth taking either on this week.
Let’s face it, no-one would be surprised if the world’s top two both lifted trophies this week – Alcaraz did so here in 2023, while Sinner is the defending champion this week in Halle. I’m sure the double will be popular.
Yet backing either man at odds-on would rather fly in the face of my long-term propensity for taking on the shorties, especially in a week such as this when both men will be stepping onto a grasscourt for the first time in 11 months.
Focusing solely on Alcaraz for now, as he’s the man punters need to get beat at Queen’s Club, and the fact is he’s the two-time Wimbledon champion.
Having also won this title in 2023, he’s been the best player on this surface in the past two years, going 20-1 on it across that period.
However, the one defeat did come here 12 months ago when he lost to Jack Draper shortly after claiming the French Open title.
After his epic efforts of last weekend’s Roland Garros final, could history repeat itself somewhat?
For those looking for chinks in the armour, you certainly can wonder how much that five-and-a-half-hour battle with Sinner took out of Alcaraz – and not just physically.
The manner of victory – which saw him become the first man in the Open Era to come from three championship points down to win a Slam – must have been mentally taxing and the Spaniard certainly deserved more than a few days off.
Yet less than a week later he was practising on the west London grass, ready to go again.
If I were going to back Alcaraz at odds-on, I’d also be a little concerned about his draw.
It’s not easy with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina no opening gimme – he made the last eight here in 2022.
Jordan Thompson, a potential second-round foe, knows his way around a grasscourt and made the Queen’s semis last year.
Then could come BEN SHELTON in the quarter-finals.
The American could be worth an interest given how he performed in Stuttgart last week.
Shelton made the semi-finals and, notably, didn’t lose his serve in any of his three matches, eventually bowing out against Alex Zverev in two tie-breaks.
That goes to show how his big serve can be a serious weapon on this surface and I’ve no doubt he’ll hit plenty of unreturned serves this week.
However, there’s another aspect that pushes me towards Shelton and that’s the court conditions.
The courts at Queen’s Club have often been described as the best grasscourts in the world by members of the ATP Tour but I doubt such plaudits will be handed out this year.
In 2025, the courts will be far from lush green on day one as the WTA Tour has been playing at the same venue for the past week.
Throw in a very dry and pretty warm spring/summer in London and I’d expect conditions this week to be fairly high bouncing, relatively speaking. Less slippy too.
I think that could benefit Shelton, who enjoys the ball sitting up to get his big forehand into play more.
Admittedly, Shelton is yet to beat Alcaraz in three attempts but he produced a strong display against him at Roland Garros only the other week and you have to fancy his chances on this surface more given the weapons at his disposal.
If like me you do want to take on Alcaraz, Shelton looks the best option but I also want to mention another player at a whopping price and that’s CAMERON NORRIE.
The Briton is only here on a wild card but he’s a former finalist at Queen’s Club (in 2021) and also made the quarter-finals in 2023.
The year in between, 2022, he reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon. Ergo, this is a man who can play on grass.
2024 was a disappointment but in recent weeks we’ve seen good signs from the one-time New Zealander.
He reached the semi-finals in Geneva, only losing in a deciding set to Novak Djokovic, and then defeated Daniil Medvedev en route to the last 16 of the French Open.
In short, confidence will be up heading onto a surface on which he knows how to play better than most.
Crucially, he’s landed in what looks the weakest quarter of the draw, one in which the seeds are Holger Rune and Jakub Mensik, the man he will open against.
Mensik may be the eighth seed but his lifetime record on grass is just 2-5 and the Czech youngster has really struggled since his surprise success at the Miami Open.
The winner of that will face Roberto Bautista Agut or Nuno Borges, neither of whom is particularly at home on grass.
Rune looks a tougher test, although he’s far from unbeatable, certainly on this surface.
I can’t resist a small bet on the Briton at 66/1.
The bottom half seems the obvious place to seek an each-way alternative to Alcaraz.
However, it is far from obvious where the value lies.
I did consider Alex de Minaur but he looks to have a tricky draw – he may need to beat Jiri Lehecka, Den Bosch champion Gabriel Diallo and Stuttgart winner Taylor Fritz just to make the semis.
I also thought about giving Brandon Nakashima another chance after backing him in Stuttgart only for him to lose to Zverev.
Yet he has a poor record against likely second-round opponent Frances Tiafoe (1-5) and always needs to win a lot of tie-breaks to go deep. It’s too risky backing him in a field of this quality.
Frankly, Jack Draper looks the most likely finalist in the bottom half but he’s also the favourite in the section.
As he showed last year, Draper could challenge Alcaraz were they to meet in the final and he’ll have his backers following an excellent season that saw him break into the world’s top four last week.
However, he’s short enough for me at around the 5/1 mark and so I’ll stick with the bets in the top half and hope that Alcaraz isn’t in top form.
Terra Wortmann Open
- Halle, Germany (outdoor grass)
Jannik Sinner heads up the field in Halle where he is the defending champion.
As suggested above, it would be absolutely no surprise were he to lift the trophy again next weekend but is there any value in odds-on quotes? I’m not convinced there is.
Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz were streets ahead of the opposition at the recent French Open but you have to wonder what mental damage was done by the Italian blowing three championship points – all in a row – last weekend.
He’s now heading onto what is his weakest surface, albeit one on which he did win a title for the first time 12 months ago.
His overall improvement probably meant that was always likely but it certainly took a while and those thinking it could have been something of an outlier can draw on some other Sinner grass stats.
Prior to last year, Sinner had on four consecutive occasions lost in round one or two of his first grasscourt tournament of the season.
Here he’ll face a qualifier first up but a second-round clash with the mercurial Alexander Bublik, himself a former champion here, could be awkward. Many will have seen what Bublik did to Jack Draper at the French Open with a peerless display.
However, for me, the biggest danger could come from HUBERT HURKACZ, a potential quarter-final foe for Sinner.
- PLEASE NOTE: Hurkacz withdrew prior to his first match
The Pole loves it here in Halle, having won the title in 2022 and returned to the final in 2024.
Twelve months ago, Hurkacz was beaten by Sinner in that final which didn’t see a break of serve. It was tight but Sinner did edge it to open a 3-2 advantage in the pair’s head-to-head.
Hurkacz’s success in Halle is, at least in part, due to the higher bounce than you get in Stuttgart, for example, and he’s another player who loves to crush his groundstrokes rather than having to revert to too many slices.
He could certainly make things awkward for Sinner, were they to meet, although the problem here is not knowing how his fitness is.
Hurkacz had to withdraw from Den Bosch last week with a back injury so any bet on him is somewhat risky. That said, he’s in the field and most bookies return your stake if he fails to hit a ball.
Take a small bit of the 18/1 on offer.
The bottom half of the draw is the better approach here as each-way shots take out the Sinner problem.
I’m going to take a chance on UGO HUMBERT.
Admittedly, he’s a player I’ve rarely backed on a good week but he does have them, mainly on the faster surfaces.
With his strong lefty serve and attacking approach, Humbert delivered one of those good weeks at this very tournament four years ago and duly won the title.
He was in good nick last week in Den Bosch before running into eventual champion Gabriel Diallo in the semis but the plus side of that is he’s had an extra day to prepare for the different conditions in Halle.
Humbert is in the same quarter as second seed Alex Zverev but he was the man the French star beat to win here in 2021 and the German is also coming in off a final defeat in Stuttgart.
At 33s, I’m tempted enough to back Humbert.
The eye is also caught by the 125/1 price of QUENTIN HALYS in the third quarter.
This section looks weak with Francisco Cerundolo and an out-of-sorts Daniil Medvedev – beaten by Reilly Opelka in Den Bosch last week – as the two seeds.
Halys may have the tools to take advantage.
The French star has a big serve and power off the ground – he struck 22 aces in two matches in Stuttgart last week.
He went there after a return to form, of sorts, at the French Open and it took eventual champ Fritz to stop him, that match featuring just a single break of serve.
Essentially, Halys wasn’t a million miles away from the week’s best player and that should give him something to build on in Halle.
He’s a long shot but probably doesn’t deserve to be a triple-figure price.
Posted at 1810 BST on 15/06/25
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