The opening day of the cinch Championships at Queens Club in London on Monday is actually quite a quiet one with just the five singles matches on show at the ATP 500 tournament which acts as build-up for Wimbledon.
Four of those five matches come on what is a decent enough schedule on the Centre Court where former champions and talented stars take to the stage while there is a competitive looking match on Court 1 too.
Centre Court
We open up the tournament with the 2014 champion Grigor Dimitrov stepping onto the main court as he opens up his grass court campaign with a clash with the wily veteran Adrian Mannarino. When they are done the semi-finalist of a year ago, Holger Rune, will be on court when he meets the Australian player Jordan Thompson before one of the four British men in the event, Cameron Norrie, looks to find some form when he faces the former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic. The Centre Court action concludes with Alejandro Tabilo going up against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
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Court 1
There is only one singles match over on Court 1 on Monday with the doubles tournament also getting underway on this part of the grounds. It is the singles which gets the day started as the American player Frances Tiafoe looks to get a fluctuating season on some sort of track on the clay when he goes up against Australian qualifier Rinky Hijikata who had a good win over Arthur Rinderknech in the final qualifying round to book his spot in the main draw.
Betting
With only five matches to go at on Monday and both of my outright bets taking to the court there isn’t a huge amount for me to get stuck into over the course of the day but there is one bet that I like which comes in the second of the matches on the Centre Court where the exciting Holger Rune takes on Jordan Thompson in a match where the Australian player could just be a little too big in the betting in a match which feels much more even than the odds suggest.
This will be the first match on the grass this year for Rune and he won’t have had much chance to get on it in practice either with the horrendous weather the London area has seen over the last week or so. Thompson went to Holland to get his grass court campaign underway last week and while he lost in the first round to Milos Raonic he has at least been on the grass this year. Thompson reached the final on the grass in Hertogenbosch last year and has a good grass court pedigree going 33:16 on the surface since the Covid year. He feels a big price to win this one.
Tips
Back J.Thompson to beat H.Rune for a 3/10 stake at 3.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
