Free tennis betting tips: Shenzhen and Chengdu preview

40/1 shot Martin Klizan delivered a decent profit from last week’s preview – at time of writing he’s due to contest the final in St Petersburg.

The tour moves away from Europe and on to Asia this week with two 250-level tournaments, the type which are always good for picking out some value.

With plenty of question marks over the favourites in Shenzhen and Chengdu, I’ve picked out some more big prices. Fingers crossed…

Shenzhen Open

Shenzhen, China (outdoor hard)

Best bets:

• 0.5pt e.w. Cameron Norrie at 66/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair)
• 0.5pt e.w. Jiri Vesely at 40/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair)

Since joining the ATP World Tour in 2014, the courts in Shenzhen have played among the fastest on the circuit.

Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych (twice) have won here, although last year David Goffin was something of a surprise winner.

The diminutive Belgian is back to defend his crown this year, although what state he’ll be in following a near 24-hour flight from Chicago, where he has been playing in the Laver Cup, is open to question.

He won’t arrive until at least Tuesday and while he’ll be able to start his campaign on Thursday it’s still some turnaround with the indoor to outdoor change to deal with too.

Goffin is one of five players offered at a single-figure price and I’m happy to put a line through some of the others too.

Andy Murray returns to action for the first time since his second-round exit from the US Open and I can’t have him as the joint favourite.

Since his return following hip surgery, the Scot has failed to convince me that he’s got title form in him at the moment.

With a local wild-card first up (albeit one who made the last eight here last season), Murray looks likely to be Goffin’s first opponent, while then could come a meeting with his US Open conqueror Fernando Verdasco.

Right now I’d mush rather back Verdasco than Murray in the outright market given he’s more than twice the price (14/1 to 6/1).

Young guns Stefanos Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov could both go well, although the pair arrive following indoor matches in Europe over the past week when neither looked at his best.

Having the sun on their backs once again – it’s going to around 30C and pretty humid in Shenzhen – will help but we’re heading into the latter part of the season and I just wonder if the amount of tennis in their young legs will prove a factor in the closing weeks. Tsitsipas has played 52 matches, Shapovalov 49. At short prices, I’m happy to overlook them on this occasion.

Borna Coric is the other ‘shortie’ but he’s very hit and miss and it’s another player in his quarter of the draw I like the look of at a big price.

Briton Cameron Norrie played some impressive stuff during the lead up to the US Open and he reached hardcourt quarter-finals in both Atlanta (on DecoTurf which is being used here) and Los Cabos.

He’s now claimed no fewer than seven top-50 scalps (in 31 main tour-level matches) this season and I’m prepared to cut him some slack with regard to his shock Davis Cup defeat from match point up in Glasgow recently – one he duly made amends for a couple of days later.

Embed from Getty Images

Given how he’s performed on hardcourts this season, Norrie should be confident heading back onto outdoor hard and quotes of 66/1 appear to be doing him something of a dis-service.

At the very least, Norrie has back-to-lay potential.

The same could also be said of Denis Kudla, a player who also played well during the North American hardcourt swing. A quarter-finalist in Atlanta, he pushed Nick Kyrgios to a final-set tie-break in Cincinnati.

If he keeps serving as well as he was in those weeks, Kudla could also make a few waves in this section of the draw and I wouldn’t put anyone off backing him at 80s.

However, my other recommended bet is a long shot in the bottom half of the draw, namely Jiri Vesely.

The Czech could face Damir Dzumhur in the second round but the Bosnian is not in the sort of form he was 12 months ago when he made the semis here, while Tsitsipas could await in the last four.

Vesely should be happy in these quick conditions – he enjoyed a strong grasscourt season with a semi-final showing in Antalya the week before Wimbledon where he made the last 16.

His big first serve helped him on the grass and in these slick conditions it should prove to be a useful weapon.

Vesely made the quarter-finals in Auckland on outdoor hard earlier in the season (he’s a former winner of that tournament) and he was a little unfortunate to draw eventual finalist Gilles Simon in the opening round in Metz last week.

Losing that was no disgrace and will have actually given him more time to prepare for the different conditions of the Asian swing.

I admit his form is far from sparkling but his game style fits the profile of a player who ‘should’ be winning in these conditions and at 40/1 he’s worth a small poke.

Chengdu Open

Chengdu, China (outdoor hard)

Best bet:

• 1pt e.w. Nikoloz Basilashvili at 15/1 (188Bet)

Twelve months ago just one of the eight seeds made the quarter-finals which then produced the following semi-final line-up: Denis Istomin (eventual champion), Marcos Baghdatis (runner-up), Yuichi Sugita and Guido Pella.

These are slower conditions than across the country in Shenzhen and the lack of pace will only be heightened by the forecast of plenty of rain throughout the week.

If the predictions are right, there’s every chance of players having to double up on some days, or maybe even matches being moved indoors.

The market leaders look ripe for taking on. Favourite Hyeon Chung has gone 6-5 since his return to the tour following injury with only one top-50 opponent – a woefully out of form Jack Sock – beaten. Chung simply hasn’t hit the heights he attained earlier in the campaign.

Fabio Fognini has never been one to trust at a short price and we only have to look back to last week in St Petersburg (where he lost his opener) for evidence of that.

And similar things can be said of Gael Monfils, who has only won two titles on outdoor hard in his entire career. On the plus side, Monfils has been tuning up in Taiwan, reaching the final of a Challenger event, but then again now his backers need him to play two full weeks of tennis back-to-back. Given his ailing body, I’d be worried about him being up to it, especially given he’s around the 5/1 mark.

So, who should be supported?

Last year’s beaten finalist Baghdatis made the shortlist – he won five matches in Indian Wells this season where the outdoor hardcourts are pretty slow, if higher bouncing. He also made the last eight indoors in Sofia, another event known for a lack of pace.

What puts me off though is the fact the Cypriot withdrew from St Petersburg at the last minute last week citing a leg problem.

Radu Albot is tempting at 80/1 given he must have confidence flowing through him following a career-best week in Metz, when he made his first semi-final at this level.

However, those were faster conditions, he served at numbers well above his norm and now he’s got the long trip to Asia in a short space of time to deal with.

Pella, another who did well here last year, was also considered at 25s having enjoyed two convincing wins at the US Open, an impressive Davis Cup victory and made the second round in St Petersburg where losing to defending champ Dzumhur was far from disgraceful.

Pella is drawn into the second quarter but it is another man in that section, who has earned my selection – Nikoloz Basilashvili.

He’s a man for all surfaces and court speeds it seems these days and his career-best season continued on the fast courts of Metz over the past week when he made the quarter-finals and only narrowly lost to Kei Nishikori.

Prior to that he made the last 16 of the US Open, taking a set off world number one Rafael Nadal with his big-hitting game. That came just a few weeks after his maiden ATP title on the clay of Hamburg.

Embed from Getty Images

After that run, the Georgian finds himself at a career-high ranking of 31^st and should be keen on staying on a roll.

Sadly early 20/1 quotes have been snapped up but 15s – or the more widely available 14/1 – remains a decent-enough price. Back Basil each-way and you only need him to win three matches to earn a profit.

The first of those will be against either Sam Querrey or Pella, a player Basilashvili beat at the US Open just a month ago. He trails Querrey 1-0 on the head-to-head, although the American’s form has dipped rather alarmingly and he’s failed to win back-to-back matches since Wimbledon.

The seed scheduled to face Basilashvili in the quarter-finals is Tennys Sandgren, another who has done little of late, and then could come Fognini.

Potential paths to an ATP final don’t look much better than that and the in-form Basilashvili warrants support.

• Could I write for you or your company? Would you like my tips on your website? If so, please get in touch.