Need your tennis fix? There’s plenty of action this week
If you’re a big fan of tennis and of tennis betting, this is a prime week for you.
On the men’s circuit, there are not one, not two, but three tournaments going on this week. You won’t be seeing Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray, and several other top men’s tennis stars in action this week, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be paying attention.
First up, there’s the Estoril Open in Estoril, Portugal, which has the most ‘star power‘ this week, with six of the world‘s top 25 players participating, including #1 seed Gilles Simon and two of the top American players in James Blake and Mardy Fish. #5 seed David Nalbandian has already gone down 6-2, 6-2 in the first round to Chilean Paul Capdeville, the 91st ranked player in the world, so it would be wise to pay close to this tournament, because that upset could set the tone for more along the way.
In Serbia, there’s the Serbia Open, where the #1 seed is Novak Djokovic, who’s coming off of a runner-up to the on-fire Rafael Nadal in Rome. Djokovic has made the final of the last three tournaments he’s been in, losing to Nadal (twice) and Murray (once), but with neither of those guys in his way (nor Andy Roddick, who’s beaten him twice this year), I don’t see anything standing in his way of a second title this season.
And, rounding out the men’s slate for this week is the BMW Open in Munich, Germany, where the top seed is Fernando Gonzalez. A couple of other notable names participating there are Lleyton Hewitt and up-and-comer Marin Cilic, who’s shooting for his third title of the season after winning at Chennai and Zagreb earlier in the season.
If you’re picking tournament winners, your best bets are going to be with the top seeds. Of the 25 ATP tournaments that have been played already this season, 22 have been won by someone in the top four seeds (#1 – 11, #2 – 3, #3, 3, #4 – 5). The only exceptions are Radek Stepanek (#8) in Brisbane in January, Hewitt (unseeded) at the U.S. Men’s Claycourt Championships in Houston last month, and in the same week, Juan Carlos Ferrero (unseeded) in Morocco.
For what it’s worth, Hewitt is also unseeded in Munich. Not that you have to, you know, take any action on it, but it’s a piece of info worth considering if you’re doing some men’s tennis betting this week. On that note, if you take a look at the odds right now, one match I’ll be paying close attention to is James Blake’s match against Frederico Gil tomorrow. Blake may be the #4 seed at Estoril, but he’s the underdog against Gil, as he comes in having lost in the first round in each of his last two tournaments and not having made it past the third round in the last five. Slumps have to be broken eventually, so taking Blake tomorrow might be a risk well worth taking.
Of course we can’t forget about the women either, as there are two tournaments on the women’s circuit this week. There’s also a WTA event in Estoril this week, but the real headline will be in Rome. The men were there last week, and now it’s the womens’ turn, with many of the world’s top women’s tennis players in action at the Internazionali d’Italia, including current women’s #1 Dinara Safina and Venus and Serena Williams. The lady I’ll have my eye on is Victoria Azarenka, who has a WTA-leading three titles this season and has shot her way up the rankings to 8th. Women’s tennis betting is a little less of a sure thing than men’s tennis betting can be sometimes, but if Azarenka makes you a winner this week, then you know who to thank.
And don’t forget, the French Open is only three weeks away, and there’s never a bad time to do some tennis futures betting, even if you think it’s a foregone conclusion that Nadal’s going to win again (and he is).
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