The first round of the cinch Championships is due to come to a close at Queens Club on Tuesday when the ATP 500 event has nine singles matches being played across three courts in the capital should the weather play ball.
The opening day had a couple of surprises for us but in the main the leading lights on show made it through so the tournament is already nicely setup. The real big guns get their campaign underway on Tuesday so the quality should be very high.
Centre Court
The action begins with the number two seed Holger Rune looking to win his first grass court match at this level when he goes up against the Eastbourne finalist of last season in Maxime Cressy. When the number two seed is done the number one seed will be on show when Carlos Alcaraz goes up against the French lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech. The big match of the day from a British point of view is the penultimate one on the schedule when Alex de Minaur takes on the winner in Surbiton and Nottingham over the last two weeks in Andy Murray. The Eastbourne champion from last season Taylor Fritz rounds off the play against the Spanish player Bernabe Zapata Miralles.
Court 1
Three singles matches take place on Court 1 and if you only have a ground pass for Queens on Tuesday you won’t necessarily be disappointed as the schedule is pretty good. It begins with the one Briton on show away from Centre Court as Liam Broady looks to pick up a win when he faces Adrian Mannarino. When they are done the Stuttgart winner Frances Tiafoe looks to continue his winning run when he faces Botip van de Zandschulp before the action on Court 1 concludes with the former champion Grigor Dimitrov taking on Emil Ruusuvuori.
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Court 5
The other two first round matches take place over on Court 5 where again if this is all you can view you are not going to be let down. The former Wimbledon boys champion Alejandro Davidovich Fokina will get the action underway in that part of the grounds when he meets the rising Czech player Jiri Lehecka before the second game sees Jordan Thompson, finalist in the Netherlands last week, takes on Milos Raonic in what will be an interesting blend of styles.
Betting
I can’t say I’m a massive fan of taking on Andy Murray in front of a British crowd but I do believe Alex de Minaur should be the favourite in their clash on Centre Court on Tuesday. There are a few reasons for that. Perhaps the lesser of them is the fact that the Australian leads Murray 3-0 in their previous meetings which probably isn’t as relevant as it might be with one of the matches being at the Laver Cup and another on clay at the start of the recent clay season which Murray sacked off soon after.
What might be more relevant is the fact that Murray has won tournaments the last two weeks and while that can never be a negative, he has played 10 times in that span and although a lot of his matches have been relatively easy or comfortable it all hangs in the legs and it is inevitable he’ll throw in a jaded performance soon. The other thing about those wins is Nuno Borges at 69 is the highest ranked player he has beaten. De Minaur had a taste of the grass in Holland last week where he went down to the eventual winner Tallon Griekspoor in a deciding set. You would imagine the Aussie will feast on the Murray second serve and being the fresher man too I’ll take him to come out on top here.
Tips
Back A.de Minaur to beat A.Murray for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
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