Notes from the Tour: Prepare for big prices in Paris...

Thursday 23rd October 2025

One of my favourite tournaments of the year takes place next week…

The Rolex Paris Masters is the final ATP 1000 event of the year. Coming at the back-end of a long and gruelling season, Paris indoors has a reputation for producing big-odds finalists, upsets and surprises…

This year, the event has moved to a new venue - and it’s an impressive one. Paris La Défense Arena is Europe’s largest indoor stadium.

Here are some of the big-price winners and finalists at this tournament in recent years (Outright Winner price in brackets - bookies pay 1/2 odds for runner-up)...

Rolex Paris Masters:

2024
Runner-up: Ugo Humbert (150/1)
 
2023
Runner-up: Grigor Dimitrov (40/1)

2022
Winner: Holger Rune (50/1)

2019
Runner-up: Denis Shapovalov (80/1)

2018
Winner: Karen Khachanov (40/1)

2017
Winner: Jack Sock (40/1)
Runner-up: Filip Krajinovic (300/1)

2016
Runner-up: John Isner (80/1)

Check-out this eye-catching stat:

• 8 of the last 18 Paris Masters finalists have gone off at odds of 40/1 or greater. Including one in each of the last 3 seasons 

Add in the fact that seven-time Paris champion Novak Djokovic has pulled out injured from next week’s event - having made the final in each of his last five visits. And the case for an exciting week of outsider betting only gets stronger…

Here at Ones to Watch we’ve been targeting this tournament for some time. Paris indoors fits the bill for our big-odds approach:

In the Outright Winner markets, we back appealing outsiders at attractive Each Way prices.

For example:

• Last year here in Paris, we were on former champ Karen Khachanov at a top-price 150/1. He got to the semi finals, and got very close: just one set away from securing a huge Each Way payout, before being severely hampered by injury…

• In 2023, we backed Ugo Humbert at 100/1 - 66/1. Only to see the Frenchman get to the final at triple-figure odds the very next year…

• And in 2022, we got on Holger Rune halfway through the tournament, landing odds of 33/1 when the young Dane went on to beat Djokovic in a classic final…

I’ll be sending out my first selections for the 2025 edition of the Rolex Paris Masters, early next week…

Play starts in the 1st round on Monday. We can expect to see bookies’ tournament markets appearing online from Sunday night…

P.S

If you’re NOT a Ones to Watch member yet… 

Don’t miss Paris next week - join the big-odds quest here >>

Enjoy the tennis…

Best wishes,

Oliver Upstone

Ones to Watch