It was another week for the veterans on the ATP Tour last week with the unseeded 35 year old Feliciano Lopez defeating favourite and fourth seed Cilic 4-6 7-6 7-6 to lift the Queens title, which was his first of the season. Over in Halle, Germany 36 year old and top-seed Roger Federer won an unprecedented ninth Halle title, defeating fourth seed and NextGen star Alexander Zverev in a one-sided final 6-1 6-3, which was played under the roof due to rain.
It was a case of close, but no cigar again this week after coming so close to getting a big priced finalist with Khachanov (66/1), who had a few second set points against Federer to take it to a decider in their semi-final on Saturday. Yesterday, Alexander Zverev (13/2) lost a one sided final against Federer yesterday.
Federer is now not surprisingly the clear favourite to win Wimbledon, closely followed by Murray, Nadal and Djokovic, and on 2017 form it would not be a surprise if we witnessed another Federer and Nadal final if the draw pans out that way. Also, it’s looking less and less likely that any of the well-established top players or young up and coming players are going to make a serious challenge at Wimbledon this year, which is disappointing from a betting perspective.
On to this week’s ATP action and there are two ATP 250 events at Eastbourne and Antalya, Turkey which is a new tournament on the tour. Eastbourne has attracted former world number one Djokovic, who accepted a wild card, in an attempt to hone his game in time for Wimbledon next week, but it does not look like the Serb is going to be turning his fortunes around anytime soon judging by recent performances.
Defending champion and fourth seed Steve Johnson returns and is in the top-half of the draw alongside Djokovic, as is fifth seed and Queens quarter-finalist Querrey (20/1) who faces a tough opener against NextGen star Medvedev. The bottom half of the draw is headed by second seed Monfils, followed by third seed Isner, but my idea of the finalist and potential winner from the bottom half is seventh seed Gasquet (14/1) who showed good form at Halle last week reaching the semi-finals. As there is no historical data to draw on for Antalya I will not provide any betting advice for this tournament.
Don’t forget from a betting and trading perspective its worth opposing the top-five seeds at the ATP and WTA Tour grass court events again this week based on my proven system that has analysed all such results since 2010. Since this seasons grass court season commenced if you had opposed/laid the top-five seeds at all of the ATP and WTA tournaments to a level 1 point stake you would be over 11 points in profit so far.
