Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour preview and best bets

Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour

1pt e.w. Grigor Dimitrov in the Cinch Championships at 20/1 (Unibet, BetUK)

1pt e.w. Ugo Humbert in the Cinch Championships at 28/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes, Betfred)

2pts win Hubert Hurkacz in the Terra Wortmann Open at 9/1 (Unibet, BetUK)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Cinch Championships

• Queen’s Club, London, England, UK (outdoor grass)

Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune may well be the future of men’s tennis but are they really going to be top dogs at Queen’s Club this week?

With both men highly inexperienced on grass, I highly doubt it and certainly won’t be getting involved given the prices on offer.

Alcaraz did make the last 16 at Wimbledon last year but this will be his first career match on grass outside of SW19 and it’s long been said that these the slickest grasscourts around – more like the old-school ones of the Boris Becker and Pete Sampras eras.

Qualifier Arthur Fils has a strong serve and I wouldn’t be hugely surprised were Alcaraz to fall at the first hurdle.

Tournament director Luiz Procopio Carvalho won’t want to hear it, but the same can be said of Rune, a player who is yet to win a single match on grass in his fledging career.

He’s 0-3 on it so far, all three losses coming last season, and here he faces Maxime Cressy first up.

OK, Cressy let us down when backing him last week but his massive serve inflicted plenty of damage on British grasscourts last year, notably at Eastbourne where he finished runner-up.

In short, Rune looks very vulnerable early doors.

Cases can be made for some of the other seeds.

Taylor Fritz, for example, shone at Wimbledon 12 months ago and is another with the serve which could prove very tough to return in these conditions.

Frances Tiafoe arrives here off the back of a final appearance in Stuttgart, while Cam Norrie made the final here two years ago and also reached the Wimbledon semis in 2022.

All warrant respect but I like the look of two proven players on this surface.

Some will choose Andy Murray after the former Wimbledon champion claimed back-to-back grasscourt titles on the Challenger Tour.

A good run here wouldn’t be a shock – he looks physically fine at the moment and few know how to play better than Murray on this surface.

Yet the layers are aware of this and there looks little juice in his price, especially given a tricky draw which features Alex de Minaur in round one and potentially Fritz in the last eight.

Instead my choices with which to take on the market leaders are GRIGOR DIMITROV and UGO HUMBERT.

Dimitrov is in the top half alongside Alcaraz and could well be the man to take out the world number two if they meet in the quarter-finals.

The experienced Bulgarian won here back in 2014 and has two other Queen’s semi-final appearances on his CV, as well as one at Wimbledon.

In short, he knows how to play on grass with his impressive array of shots.

He showed that in qualifying over the weekend, during which he faced (and saved) only one break point in his two matches.

An opening match against Emil Ruusuvuori is no gimme but Dimitrov did beat him in straight sets at the recent French Open and I rate him a better grasscourt player.

Tommy Paul would likely follow before, potentially, Alcaraz and Tiafoe.

I think that’s a pretty decent draw and backing a player who has a strong track record here, and one who is already in the groove on grass, looks a worthwhile ploy.

In the bottom half, I’m prepared to give Humbert another go.

He was one of our picks last week but perhaps I should have paid more attention to his poor head-to-head record with second-round opponent Ruusuvuori.

Still, Humbert did manage to create eight break points in that match; the fact he took only one of them was ultimately his undoing.

His awkward lefty serve should stay fairly low on these courts and if Cressy doesn’t do the job on Rune, I think Humbert may well do so in round two.

The Frenchman won in this week of the season in 2021 – over in Halle – and given his draw here I think he’s capable of going deep again.

Let’s take an each-way punt at 28/1.

Terra Wortmann Open

• Halle, Germany (outdoor grass)

Last week’s preview predicted much of the seeded chaos we subsequently saw in Stuttgart and Den Bosch, although sadly the alternative picks proved to be the wrong ones.

Many of those big names are back to try again in Halle but it’s hard to get too excited about some short prices which surround the likes of Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Jannik Sinner, all of whom lost early last week.

Nick Kyrgios also slumped on his return, producing a performance which suggests it may well take some time before he’s back competing for these sort of prizes.

I guess you never really know when the mercurial Aussie will turn it on but, on last week’s evidence, there look to be better bets.

The man I prefer is HUBERT HURKACZ.

He got a good mention in last week’s Stuttgart preview, although ultimately I didn’t back him.

That proved a good move in the end as he lost in the semi-finals.

Still, there were some encouraging signs, particularly the serve, which was the shot which helped propel the Pole to the title here 12 months ago.

Hurkacz slammed down 58 aces in his three matches last week and something similar can be expected this week at a venue where he played so well last year, beating Kyrgios and Medvedev back-to-back to claim the title.

Andrey Rublev is in Hurkacz’s quarter but the Russian prefers a slower court and I’d definitely be backing the Pole in such an encounter.

Meanwhile, a rematch with Medvedev could occur in the semis but Hurkacz leads their head-to-head 3-2 and notably it’s 2-0 on grass.

With doubts about those above him and just below him in the market, Hurkacz is worth a bet at 9/1.

Posted at 1615 BST on 18/06/23

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