All the big names dropped like flies in last week’s ATP 250 event in Munich. Our pick for the title was Alexander Zverev of Germany, which looked a good one after his opening round form, although he would go on to lose to eventual champion Christian Garin in the quarterfinals.
With the Munich Open now done and dusted we now turn our attention to this week’s major ATP event, which is the Mutua Madrid Open in Madrid, Spain. This is a highly prestigious event and is one of the eight Masters 1000 tournaments of the 2019 season and the fourth of the year so far. As always, we’ve scoured the markets to bring you our best pick for the event, which you can find along with our preview below. Good luck to everyone following along this week!
ATP Madrid Open Betting Tips
Background
The Madrid Open is an annual Masters 1000 event on the ATP Tour and was first held back in 2002 where it was won by Andre Agassi. Between the 2008-09 editions the event was changed from hard court to clay court, which has resulted in Rafael Nadal winning the event a record five times. The 2018 edition was won by young German star Alexander Zverev, while the runner up for the second year in a row was Austrian Dominic Thiem.
2019 Top 8 Seeds
Being the 56-strong field that it is means that the top eight seeds at this year’s event will get automatic entry into the second round. For reference, the top eight seeds in this year’s tournament are:
(1) Novak Djokovic (Serbia)
(2) Rafael Nadal (Spain)
(3) Alexander Zverev (Germany)
(4) Roger Federer (Switzerland)
(5) Dominic Thiem (Austria)
(6) Kei Nishikori (Japan)
(7) Juan Martin Del Potro (Argentina)
(8) Stefanos Ttitsipas (Greece)
Contenders
Being the clay court event that it is, there’s no surprise that Rafael Nadal comes in as favourite to win his sixth title at his home event in Madrid. He hasn’t been in the greatest of nick in the clay court swing this season, but he hasn’t been horrible either. Expect him to be right in it at the business end once again.
World number one Novak Djokovic is right behind Nadal in favouritism with the bookies. He too has been off the boil a little bit in recent weeks but is more than capable of putting in a good showing in Madrid. He’s a two-time winner at this event and has a decent draw to begin his run.
Roger Federer resumes from his spell on the sidelines to take to the courts in Madrid. He has skipped the clay court swing in the past couple of years but has decided to give it a go in 2019. It’s hard to see him figuring in the business end in his first event back on tour, but then again, he is Roger Federer after all.
As mentioned above, Dominic Thiem has been the runners up at Madrid in each of the past two seasons. He’s an excellent clay court player, winning nine of his 14 career title on this surface, hence why he comes in as the other short odds player here.
Alexander Zverev is the reigning champion at Madrid and has had a lot of success at Masters events over the past couple of seasons. However, he’s going through a bit of a form slump at the moment and was unable to take advantage of a soft draw at his home event in Munich last week.
Prediction
Rafael Nadal ($2.50), Novak Djokovic ($4), and Dominic Thiem ($7) are the three single figure quotes at Madrid this week. Nadal is the obvious choice considering his stellar career on clay coupled with his success at Madrid. He does seem a touch short at $2.50, however that could prove to be overs if he can find his best form early in the week. All things considered, we like Nadal’s price a little bit more than the others here and will have him as our selection.
In terms of a dark horse, we like the price of Stefanos Tsitsipas ($29), as well as long-shots Borna Coric ($51) and Fabio Fognini ($51). All three seem well over the odds and are capable of making a deep run on best form.
Value: Tsitsipas ($29), Fognini ($51), Coric ($51)
