Tennis betting tips: ATP Tour previews and best bets

Tennis betting tips: Tata Open Maharashtra, Open Sud de France & Cordoba Open

1pt e.w. Radu Albot in the Tata Open Maharashtra at 20/1 (bet365)

1pt e.w. Kamil Majchrzak in the Tata Open Maharashtra at 25/1 (BetVictor)

2pts win Gael Monfils in the Open Sud de France at 13/2 (Betfred)

0.5pt e.w. Tallon Griekspoor in the Open Sud de France at 33/1 (Betfred)

1pt e.w. Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the Cordoba Open at 14/1 (General)

0.5pt e.w. Federico Coria in the Cordoba Open at 33/1 (General)

0.5pt e.w. Yannick Hanfmann in the Cordoba Open at 50/1 (General)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Tata Open Maharashtra

• Pune, India (outdoor hard)

We’ve got one of the ATP Tour’s weakest events kicking things off this week and while it may not get fans tuning in to watch in great numbers, it certainly has betting potential.

There will be only one top-50 player in attendance, Aslan Karatsev, and just three from the top 75. The last direct entrant is world number 156 Aleks Vukic.

As you’d expect, Karatsev is a short-priced favourite and if he turns up fully focused, he’ll likely claim a second ATP title of the year.

But, even with what looks a good draw, 5/4 is not a price I’m prepared to take about someone who lost seven times to players ranked outside the top 50 in 2021. Those included opening-round defeats in St Petersburg and Nur-Sultan in similar 250-level tournaments at the back end of the season.

In the top half I’ll instead take a chance on RADU ALBOT, a player who notched some decent wins on his recent trip to Australia.

The Moldovan actually won five matches in a row at Melbourne Park, coming through qualifying before defeating both Yoshihito Nishioka and Vukic before falling to third seed Alex Zverev.

He’s got a good record for performing at this time of year too.

Last year the week after the Australian Open (at which he also made round three) Albot reached the semi-finals in Singapore.

And the only ATP title of his career so far also arrived in February in 2019 when he triumphed in Delray Beach.

Gianluca Mager and Daniel Altmaier are the seeds in his quarter, with Karatsev due to play the winner of it in the last four.

I reckon that’s a pretty decent draw for Albot, who is worth a dabble at 20/1.

• CLICK HERE to back Albot with Sky Bet

However, my best bet for Pune comes in the bottom half which is headed up by world number 60 Lorenzo Musetti, who has won just five of his last 21 matches at tour level.

He’ll hope the lower quality of this field can help him bounce back but anyone backing him this week if clearly taking a risk.

The bookies actually make Emil Ruusuvouri favourite to win this half which is probably fair after his five-set battle with eventual quarter-finalist Felix Auger-Aliassime at the Australian Open.

However, the Finn faces a tricky opener against 2020 runner-up Egor Gerasimov, while the champion on that occasion, Jiri Vesely, is a potential quarter-final foe.

Both Gerasimov and Vesely used their strong serves well on these Plexipave courts two years ago – the altitude in Pune, about 100 miles inland from Mumbai, certainly aids those with a big delivery.

At more than 500m above sea level, the ball flies through the air that bit faster and so it may well pay to side with a player who enjoys quicker-than-average conditions.

The one I like is KAMIL MAJCHRZAK, another who enjoyed a decent trip Down Under.

The Pole won all three matches he played at the ATP Cup, where he spent plenty of time practising with top-10 star Hubert Hurkacz, the sort of thing I always feel is beneficial for a lower-ranked player.

He then saw off Andreas Seppi in round one of the Australian Open.

OK, the level of opposition wasn’t the greatest but the same can be said about this Tata Open line-up. He’ll start against a qualifier before a likely meeting with seventh seed Ricardas Berankis. Musetti could follow.

Majchrzak enjoys the faster conditions – he made a Challenger final on the grass last summer – and I feel odds of 25/1 under-estimate his chances here.

• CLICK HERE to back Majchrzak with Sky Bet

Open Sud de France

• Montpellier, France (indoor hard)

The ATP Tour hit France for the first time in 2022 this week and so it’s time for me to remind people how strong home players have performed over the years in event such as this.

The tournaments in Marseille and Metz have seen plenty of home success but French dominance is perhaps best reflected here in Montpellier where eight of the 11 editions of the Open Sud de France have been won by Frenchmen.

In addition, seven of the runners-up have been French and only last year did we finally get a final which didn’t feature a home player. Even then, David Goffin, a French-speaker from just over the border in Belgium, claimed the title.

Prior to the completion of qualifying, there were no fewer than nine Frenchmen in the main draw and of those the one who looks to have the strongest chance of success is GAEL MONFILS.

The 35-year-old played some of the best tennis of his career at the Australian Open where he made the quarter-finals before losing a five-set thriller to Matteo Berrettini. Prior to that, he won the title in Adelaide in the opening week of the season.

That continued a trend of Monfils delivering his best results early in the season – seven of his 11 ATP titles have been won in January or February. One suspects the reason is that at that time of year his brittle body has not been worn down by the grind of the tour having had six to eight weeks without tennis in November and December.

The all-action star has won this event on three previous occasions, most recently in 2020, and again if you look through his list of titles, seven of 11 have come on indoor hardcourts.

The Greenset tends to play fairly quick here and that should suit Monfils, who enjoyed the pacy courts of Melbourne.

While it’s a speedy return to action for Monfils, he’ll have had more than a week off by the time he plays his first match of the week (he has a bye in round one) and one suspects he’ll be determined to make the most of his good form.

Indeed, if you look back to 2020 you find that he won back-to-back titles (Montpellier and Rotterdam) in February.

He looks to have a decent draw, although the big threat will potentially come from top seed Alex Zverev in the semi-finals.

Zverev left Melbourne in dejected mood following a straight-sets defeat to Denis Shapovalov.

“I as playing bad the whole week,” he grumbled. “I’ve got to do better.”

Zverev has clearly decided the best thing to do is to get back on the bike quickly and thus he accepted a wild card for this event.

Still, his tennis disappointed Down Under and that downbeat mood hardly suggested he’s ready to come straight back out and start winning in a field of decent quality such as this.

Clearly he has the talent to do so but I choose Monfils at 13/2 over Zverev, who is less than a third of that price with most firms.

• CLICK HERE to back Monfils with Sky Bet

The bottom half of the draw looks pretty open to me, certainly more open than the layers have it. They have Roberto Bautista Agut as a strong favourite to make the final.

He did so here last season but it wasn’t the best trip to Australia for the Spaniard and I feel he could be vulnerable this week.

Players considered in this section included Peter Gojowczyk (50/1) and Filip Krajinovic (25/1), both of whom have shown a propensity for slick indoor conditions in the past. Indeed, both men have been to the semis here before.

Perhaps the move back indoors will see them lift their level but both men have struggled of late and it would be taking a real leap of faith to side with them.

Instead I’m going to try to a small punt on TALLON GRIEKSPOOR, a player who has produced some strong results in recent times.

He ended 2021 by winning 26 matches in a row on the second-tier Challenger Tour, a run which helped him claim a record eight titles at that level across the season.

Crucially the Dutchman continued that momentum in Australia at the start of this season, reaching the quarter-finals of the 250-level tournament in Melbourne and then thrashing Fabio Fognini in the Australian Open where he was then beaten in five sets by Pablo Carreno Busta.

Griekspoor’s experience at this level is fairly limited but his recent results suggest he is capable of a breakthrough on the main tour soon.

Currently at a career-high ranking of 62, he possesses a strong serve which should prove problematic for opponents here and while I may prove a little too fast for the 25-year-old, the last of those Challenger titles in 2021 did come on indoor hard.

He’s offered at a best price of 33/1 here. A small-stakes, each-way bet is the suggestion.

• CLICK HERE to back Griekspoor with Sky Bet

Cordoba Open

• Cordoba, Argentina (outdoor clay)

The month-long ‘Golden Swing’ on the claycourts of South America gets under way this week with a strong field of dirt-ballers assembled in Cordoba.

They include home hope Diego Schwartzman, who is the top seed, and a certain Dominic Thiem – the former US Open champion making his comeback from injury after more than seven months on the sidelines with a wrist injury.

The pair head the market, neither bigger than 4/1, but those prices aren’t for me.

Certainly I find it hard to back Thiem given his lack of matchplay.

The Austrian originally planned to return at the start of the season in Australia but he cancelled that trip, while he had to cut short a practice session this week, although his team insisted this wasn’t a recurrence of the same issue.

As for Schwartzman, he looks to have a better chance, although it’s notable that in the previous three editions of this tournament, he’s been favourite every time but is yet to lift the trophy, the closest he came being 2020 when he was the beaten finalist.

He’s not your out-and-out clay specialist that many in this field are and I prefer to look elsewhere.

One of the reasons for that is the event’s history.

Two of its three winners have come out of left field, Juan Ignacio Londero winning in 2019 having never previously won a tour-level match, and last year Juan Manuel Cerundolo emerging as the champion. He had never played at tour level, never mind won a match at it, prior to that week.

Both men are Argentinian and one who might just make waves at a big price this week is FEDERICO CORIA.

He was a semi-finalist here last season and went one better later in the year when he reached his first ATP final in Bastad.

Coria ended 2021 by winning the Challenger Tour title in Brasilia, a noteworthy success given the Brazilian capital sits at a significant altitude.

Cordoba is lower but with the venue, which sits in the shadow of the Estadio Mario Kempes, above 400m, ball control can be awkward.

Coria could be the first opponent for Schwartzman, whom he trails 2-0 on the head-to-head. However, both matches were a decade ago and Coria these days sits just below his career-high ranking.

He’ll certainly be eyeing a strong performance given the points he’s defending so I’ll try a small play on him at 33/1.

• CLICK HERE to back Coria with Sky Bet

My best bet for this event come in the bottom half though with ALBERT RAMOS-VINOLAS holding strong claims.

He was the man who beat Schwartzman here last season, going on to finish runner-up.

That effort added to a long list of good results at altitude.

He was the champion in Gstaad in 2019, while he also has final appearances in Kitzbuhel, Quito and Sao Paulo on his CV.

Ramos-Vinolas has been a regular on this Golden Swing so knows all the venues well and will be itching to get the clay under his feet.

This is very much his surface – he doesn’t win many matches off it – and last season he was the champion in Estoril.

Admittedly his form suffered in the second half of the year but turning over a new leaf at a venue which suits should work well and 14/1 looks perfectly acceptable.

• CLICK HERE to back Ramos-Vinolas with Sky Bet

Finally, I can’t resist the 50/1 being dangled about YANNICK HANFMANN’s chances.

The German, also in the bottom half, is another with a proven track record at altitude – both of his ATP finals have come in the Alps.

Back down at sea level, he was a semi-finalist on the clay of Bastad last season, while this year began well enough with Hanfmann qualifying for the Australian Open and then crushing the in-form Thanasi Kokkinakis.

Losing in round two in Melbourne to a certain Rafael Nadal didn’t look a bad result come finals weekend.

In short, the price looks too big and if there’s to be another surprise champion in Cordoba, then it just might be the German.

• CLICK HERE to back Hanfmann with Sky Bet

Posted at 1730 GMT on 30/01/22

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