Tennis Betting Advice - October 2020
The favourites are out…
Friday 16th October 2020
In your Ones to Watch email today:
We’ve reached quarter finals day in this week’s tournaments…
The two events we have an interest in are ATP Sardinia on the clay, and ATP St Petersburg played on indoor hard courts.
The favourites are out…
The pre-tournament favourites are out of both those tournaments…
In Sardinia, no.1 seed Fabio Fognini had to pull out before playing after testing positive for coronavirus. No.3 seed, and 3/1 Outright Winner favourite Casper Ruud, lost in the 2nd round.
In Russia, leading home hope and reigning St Petersburg champion, Daniil Medvedev, was also knocked out in round two yesterday. Our man Reilly Opelka pulled off a great win there, serving big when it mattered most, and whipping out a couple of big winners and sharp volleys at the net to get ahead at crucial points in the match. The American was touching 4/1 as the match underdog going into that one against the top seed.
In Sardinia, our 18-year-old Ones to Watch pick Lorenzo Musetti is through to a first ATP quarter final of his young career. That comes after winning a first title on the lower-tier Challenger Tour last month.
Quarter Finals today…
Musetti takes on the man who took out the favourite Casper Ruud on Thursday, Yannick Hanfmann. We know all about the German – Hanfmann featured heavily in the exhibition events that popped up this spring & summer when lockdown put pay to the main tours.
The bookies make our Italian teenager the 8/11 (1.73) favourite today. Hanfmann is in form, but so is our player. The German won 2-1 on clay when these two met in a Challenger event in August. Should be a good match.
Talking of good matches, the St Petersburg quarter finals should be full of them…
The decision to bump this event up from a 250 to ATP 500 grade has paid off, with a very competitive field. The last eight line-up today makes for good reading:
Cameron Norrie v Andrey Rublev
Stan Wawrinka v Denis Shapovalov
Reilly Opelka v Borna Coric
Karen Khachanov v Milos Raonic
Wawrinka and Raonic are experienced Grand Slam contenders. While the others are all the ‘Next Gen’ breed – including Shapovalov and Coric, two of the classiest ball strikers in the game.
Coric was runner-up here in Russia last year. Opelka has already beaten one of the 2019 finalists in Medvedev; now the task is to get past the Croatian for a place in the semi finals. The oddsmakers have this one as 50-50 in the match-day betting. Opelka won their only previous meeting, 2-1 on (outdoor) hard courts in Cincinnati last summer.
Once again, we have a couple of good prices on our side, with players through to the quarter finals. I’m looking forward to watching both matches today.
Enjoy the tennis…
P.S
Next week we have two more men’s tournaments coming up, ATP Antwerp and another event in Cologne. We’ll be looking at the early Outright Winner prices for those in our Sunday Night Club email.
Best wishes,
Tom Wilson