Our three men in the Paris quarters...

Friday 5th November 2021

Sebastian Korda gave a good account of himself yesterday. He took the first set off world no.2 Daniil Medvedev. And competed well with the reigning Rolex Paris Masters champion for the majority of the match, which was their first encounter on tour at any level.

Korda couldn’t hold his top level to take a second set and land the 5/1 match upset. Medvedev came back to win 4-6, 6-1, 6-3. But I’m happy to have had Seb in the book at rank outsider odds of 100/1 this week. He’s much better than that price suggests. We’ll be looking to follow him at the big prices again in 2022, that’s for sure.

• Martina Navratilova has predicted Korda will win a first Grand Slam title in 2023. High praise indeed. The future looks very bright for the 21-year-old American

Elsewhere in Paris on Thursday, three of our other Each Way, outsider picks continued to make good progress…

Our three men in the Paris quarters…

Taylor Fritz was very impressive in beating another of our players, 40/1 Cameron Norrie. The prize for Fritz is a stab at taking out world no.1 Novak Djokovic in the quarter finals today.

Last time they met on hard courts, at the Australian Open in January, Taylor pushed Novak to the full five sets. This afternoon, the 24-year-old American will be looking for a first ever win against the Serbian star (head-to-head: 0-4). Our man is priced around 7/2 (4.5) to continue his good form and shock the favourite.

From odds of 100/1 and 80/1 when we backed him, Fritz is now 20/1 to go all the way and lift what would be a career first ATP Masters 1000 trophy.

Also into the quarter finals, two class acts from the new breed of level-headed young professionals aiming for the top of the sport…

Hubert Hurkacz is priced as a clear odds-on favourite to beat James Duckworth today, at 2/5 (1.4) and shorter. Casper Ruud is a 2/1 (3.0) underdog to upset world no.4 Alexander Zverev.

Hurkacz and Ruud are both in the Outright Winner book at top prices of 50/1 and 40/1, with 33/1 each available in general in the opening days of the tournament. Ahead of the start of play today, they are trading at 14/1 and 22/1 respectively.

Here’s the full quarter-final line-up for the ATP Paris Masters 2021. Play starts from 1pm UK time. You can watch live on Amazon Prime Video. And also on selected bookie websites, including Bet365 and Skybet:

James Duckworth v HUBERT HURKACZ

Novak Djokovic v TAYLOR FRITZ

Hugo Gaston v Daniil Medvedev

CASPER RUUD v Alexander Zverev

P.S
There’s a stack of quality tennis coming up next week, too. The main event is the season-end WTA Finals in Mexico. Along with a WTA 250 in Linz, Austria. With the men in action at the ATP 250-grade tournament in Stockholm, as well as the Next Gen Finals in Milan. I’ll be in touch from Monday onwards regarding those competitions.

Enjoy the tennis…

Best wishes,

Tom Wilson

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