Before I move on to providing my analysis of this week’s ATP Tennis action at Queens and Halle I will give a quick rundown of last week’s action. I had no success with my outright selections last week and qualifiers Medvedev (50/1) and Pospisil (40/1) did the best at 's-Hertogenbosch reaching the quarter finals. Fourth seed Gilles Muller went one better than 2016 when he lost the 's-Hertogenbosch final to Mahut and this year won the battle of the veterans beating third seed Karlovic 7-6 7-6.
At Stuttgart fourth seed Lucas Pouille flew the flag for the Next Generation coming from a set down to beat veteran Lopez in a tense serve dominated final. Pouille is definitely a potential future Grand Slam winner and his versatility having won titles on hard courts, clay and now grass means he could potentially be a future number one as well. While it’s too early to expect him to win Wimbledon this year he is definitely a dark horse and a potential Quarter winner if he receives a kind draw.
On to this week’s action and there are two ATP and WTA tournaments this week at Queens, Halle, Mallorca and Birmingham. As highlighted last week it can prove profitable to oppose the top-five seeds at grass court tournaments leading up to Wimbledon from a match betting and/or trading perspective and this proved to be the case again last week at Stuttgart on the ATP and 's-Hertogenbosch on the WTA with a level stake profit of over 17 points. I would advise following this strategy of opposing the top-five seeds at all four grass court tournaments this week, but be cautious at Queens as Murray, Raonic, Tsonga and Cilic have such strong records on grass.
At Queens top-seed and defending champion Andy Murray will attempt to win a record sixth Queens title this week and history is on his side as the top-seed has won five of the last ten titles (last Murray 2016), but they were never a losing finalist in this period. Murray is the clear favourite to win and he will be very difficult to beat again this year given his awesome record at Queens. However, he does have a tough draw with the likes of fourth seed Cilic, fifth seed Tsonga and ninth seed Kyrgios in his half of the draw and second favourite and third seed Raonic a potential finalist from the opposite side of the draw.
The second seed does not have a great record at Queens having won only two of the last ten titles (last Murray 2011) and they were a losing finalist only once in this period (last 2008), which does not bode well for Wawrinka’s chances this week. Seeded players in general have a very strong record at Queens and a player seeded no higher than six won nine of the last ten titles (last Murray 2016) and a player seeded no higher than ten was a losing finalist eight of the last ten (last Raonic 2016). Unseeded players don’t have a good record at Queens over the last decade having won only one of the last ten titles (last 2010) and they were a losing finalist twice in this period (last 2015).
From a betting perspective it hard to look past Murray given his excellent record at Queens, but he does not appeal at the prices. If Murray does reach the final he is highly likely to meet a seed in the final judging by past statistics and from the bottom half of the draw third seed and 2016 finalist Raonic looks the most likely to achieve this, but he does not appeal from a betting perspective at the prices.
Over at Halle top-seed Federer will aim to win a record ninth Halle title and make up for last week’s shock early exit at Stuttgart against 39 year old veteran Haas. However, the top-seed does not have a great record at Halle over the last decade having only won three titles in this period (last Federer 2015) and they were a losing finalist only once in this period (last Federer 2010). The second seed does not have a great record at Halle either, having only won one of the last ten titles (Last Federer 2014) and they were a losing finalist twice in this period (Last Federer 2012).
Seeded players in general have a good record at Halle over the last decade and a player seeded no higher than eight won six of the last ten titles (Last Federer 2015) and a player seeded no higher than eight was a losing finalist four times during this period (Last Federer 2012). Unseeded players have also performed well over the last decade winning four of the last ten titles (Last Mayer 2016) and they were a losing finalist six times during this period ( Last Thiem 2016).
From a betting perspective this week it’s worth siding with the unseeded Khachanov (66/1) from the top half of the draw as he looks over priced considering his big serve and aggressive game will be well suited to the quick conditions. Fourth seed Alexander Zverev (13/2) and the unseeded Kohlschreiber (20/1) should both go well this week from the bottom half of the draw given they warmed up well last week and have strong records on home soil.
