The biggest tournament on the ATP Tour this week is in Dubai. It is one of two ATP500 events but it is the one with the biggest purse and the hottest line-up of players. Novak Djokovic makes his return to action here after his Australian Open triumph.
The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships are held outdoors on a Deco Turf II surface, similar to the US Open surface.
As well as Novak Djokovic, this tournament boasts the current form player in Daniil Medvedev, looking to make it three tournament wins in a row, the other finalist from Doha, a resurgent Andy Murray, and many other members of the world’s best battling it out for the title. Djokovic has won this title five times, although only once in the last decade, and the defending champion is Andrey Rublev, who is seeded #2 in this draw.
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ATP Dubai Betting Tips
Karen Khachanov 0.75pt EW @ 14/1 at Sky Bet
Jiri Lehecka 0.5pt EW @ 22/1 at Sky Bet
Event In Focus: ATP Dubai
The analysis grid this week doesn’t cover the whole field. The eight seeded players are covered alongside other more fancied players.
Rankings & 12-month Form
Novak Djokovic, unsurprisingly, has the most impressive data on the ATP Tour over the last 12 months. He has suffered only 6 defeats in 59 matches, many of those whilst recovering from the lost time given over to COVID restrictions. Since the Serbian has been in full fitness he has been almost unbeatable.
Interestingly though, Daniil Medvedev’s games won data is almost as impressive as Djokovic’s, despite suffering more losses. The form of the Russian was being called into question, but his resurgence since Australia has shown that he is back to near the peak of his powers, and he is ranked #2 on hard court ELO ratings.
From the outsiders, Jiri Lehecka’s games won data is getting better and his hard court ELO ranking is much higher than those around his ranking. Unfortunately the bookmakers have also noticed this. Hubert Hurkacz has the best hold of serve percentage in the field and that helps him to look pretty good on the data as well.
Meanwhile, Alexei Popyrin’s year on the ATP Tour has been really poor. He showed up well at the Australian Open and clearly has the weapons in his game to do well, but he hasn’t travelled well at all. His opener is against Pavel Kotov, a qualifier, so this gives him a chance to get into the tournament.
Thanasi Kokkinakis is definitely the wildcard that I would rate higher. He comes off the back of a win in a Challenger tournament and he should be motivated to make this a big season for his singles game. The Aussie has been free of injury for a while now and he can finally try to harness the potential he has always shown. His draw is ok as well, there is a chance for a run here.
Hard Court & Playing in Asia Data
Taking into account the surface type in Dubai we are able to break down the players’ career performance on hard courts on the ATP Tour. These records include qualifying rounds. Often players have specific records based on playing in specific areas of the world so we have looked at the players’ Asian records in the field and compared them to their overall data.
No surprises again to see Novak Djokovic clear at the top of the best hard court career stats. His games won percentage is beyond elite on the artificial surfaces.
Again, it is Medvedev who is the Serbian’s closest challenger. Alexander Zverev has had a really good career on hard courts as well, but his current form is woeful. Jiri Lehecka can match Zverev’s win percentage, but off a much, much smaller sample size. The two Dutchmen, Botic van de Zandschulp and Tallon Griekspoor have win percentage that sit in with the likes of Andrey Rublev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Hubert Hurkacz, but don’t seem to be as dominant in the games that they win.
Playing In Asia
The Spaniard, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, is a rather surprising outlier here. His win percentage in Asia is a full 20% greater than his career hard court percentage, this could be something to bear in mind when assessing his chances here. Popyrin is another who seems to enjoy playing in Asia.
Borna Coric and van de Zandschulp have a considerably worse record in Asia than they do in their careers in general.
ATP Dubai Draw
Dubai has an eight seed, 32-man draw. This draw has been affected somewhat by the late withdrawals of Andy Murray and Benjamin Bonzi after their weekend travails. This means that there are a number of lucky losers in the draw, two of whom did not have their identity confirmed at the time of writing.
ATP Dubai Betting Tips
Karen Khachanov 0.75pt EW @ 14/1 at Sky Bet
In the past few years Khachanov has really been one to avoid in the outright betting. The Russian has not been displaying the hunger and the killer instinct required to win ATP events.
Whilst I remain to be convinced on him in the tightest moments, the way that this tournament has shaped up Khachanov looks the obvious main bet here. The bottom half avoids Novak Djokovic until the final, so the each way play is open to exploitation and there are a lot of players in the half that are out of form. Andrey Rublev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Alexander Zverev are the other high seeds in this half and none of them have been convincing of late.
Khachanov has a tricky opener against Botic vd Zandschulp, but if he can progress then he can be the man to go to the final from this section. He has reached back-to-back Grand Slam semifinals on hard courts, that is the best form in this half by a long way. Those who have returned to action after a break from Australia have tended to do well, hopefully Khachanov can follow suit.
Jiri Lehecka 0.5pt EW @ 22/1 at Sky Bet
We backed the Czech last week and although it wasn’t gut-wrenching to see him blow five match points in the semi-final, because we had also backed his opponent, Andy Murray, it is fair to say that Lehecka should really have been the one in that final in Doha.
The form is there for Lehecka to be a shorter price. His last two tournaments have been a quarter-final in a Grand Slam and a semi-final in Doha, beating Andrey Rublev along the way.
Again, Lehecka is in the bottom half away from Djokovic and although he has to beat Alexander Zverev straight away, Zverev also lost to Murray last week, so technically Lehecka has the upper hand on Zverev on current form.
