Andy Schooler picks out his best bets for the first round of the Rolex Shanghai Masters on Wednesday and Thursday.
Tennis tips: Shanghai Masters R1 best bets
1pt Jan-Lennard Struff to beat Martin Landaluce at evens (General)
0.5pt Zhizhen Zhang to beat Tomas Machac at 21/10 (Spreadex, SportingIndex)
Zhizhen Zhang v Tomas Machac (Wednesday)
This is another match where I feel the pricing is rather off.
Yes, Machac is the correct favourite – he’s a former semi-finalist here - but he looks very short given he arrives in Shanghai on a 1-5 run since his latest return from injury; this is a player who has often struggled with physical issues.
Last week in Beijing he actually managed to lose twice – 6-3 6-4 to Arthur Gea in the final round of qualifying and 6-3 6-2 to Alex Molcan as a lucky loser in the main draw.
That lack of competitiveness is not a good sign as he heads to Shanghai to face a player who will receive huge home support.
Zhang is also struggling, winning only one of his last eight matches, but if anywhere is likely to spark him into action it’s here in Shanghai – this is the biggest event held in China.
He’ll have the fans behind him and Machac isn’t a player you’d really associate with mental toughness.
If Zhang can get on top early, he’s capable of winning this at a big price.
Quick conditions would certainly help – his best results in 2026 have all come when it’s played fast – but with those doubts still in play, my advice would be to keep stakes fairly small across first-round bets.
Martin Landaluce v Jan-Lennard Struff (Thursday)
I’m not convinced Landaluce is the right favourite here.
He’s currently on a 3-10 run and has beaten only one top-100 player since leaving Roland Garros in late May.
On hardcourts, the Spaniard is just 8-13 in his career at tour level with four of those victories all coming in Miami back in the spring. Two others were against opponents from outside the top 100.
It’s not that long since Struff was in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon and while he’s not put together another deep run since, he’s still shown he’s capable of notching wins at this level on the hardcourts.
One such example came last week in Beijing against Thiago Agustin Tirante and a following defeat to Daniil Medvedev was far from a disgrace.
The German is an experienced campaigner and will certainly have an edge on that front with the 20-year-old Landaluce still feeling his way on the tour. Struff’s tactical nous will likely be able to find where Landaluce is struggling.
One vulnerability on this surface could be timing – Struff has the ability to rush him. Struff hits pretty flat and with plenty of power while we can’t be sure about conditions this year, as I explained in my outright preview, there are reasons to believe it will play faster than last year when there were lots of complaints about how things had slowed down.
Posted 15:30 BST on 06/10/2026
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