There is one week to go before the tennis world descends on the capital for the Wimbledon tournament but before we get there we have one final warm up event, the Lexus Eastbourne Open as 28 runners look to complete their preparations for the big one.
Taylor Fritz won this tournament for a third time last year and he is back at Devonshire Park looking to make a successful title defence but he will come up against a more than useful looking field given where the competition is in the calendar.
Recent Winners
2024 – Taylor Fritz
2023 – Francisco Cerundolo
2022 – Taylor Fritz
2021 – Alex de Minaur
2019 – Taylor Fritz
2018 – Mischa Zverev
2017 – Novak Djokovic
2014 – Feliciano Lopez
2013 – Feliciano Lopez
2012 – Andy Roddick
The Format
It is just a 28 player draw this week as we have a day less to get the tournament completed. The top four seeds receive a bye through to the last 16 with the other 24 players in the field playing a first round match to attempt to join them. The tournament is a straight knockout with the players all inserted into the bracket right from the off. The event is a best of three set competition with a normal tiebreak in the final set. The champion will be crowned on Saturday this week not Sunday as is usually the case.
Top Half
Taylor Fritz is both the defending champion and the highest ranked player in the field this week so he is the number one seed and at the top of the draw. He has a bye into the last 16 and he is joined in the second round automatically by the Miami Open champion Jakub Mensik. The other two seeds in this half of the draw are Flavio Cobolli and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina with British interest coming in the form of Jacob Fearnley and George Loffhagen, who came through qualifying. Other names to note include the big serving Reilly Opelka, Zizou Bergs and the Brazilian hotshot Joao Fonseca.
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Bottom Half
Tommy Paul is the second highest seed in the draw this week and the American opens his grass court season as the top seed in the bottom half of the bracket. He was nursing an injury at the French Open so he might be vulnerable here which will be music to the ears of Ugo Humbert, who is the other player automatically through to the second round. Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and Nuno Borges are the other seeds in the bottom half while three Brits are in this half too. They are Cameron Norrie, Dan Evans and Jack Pinnington Jones. The Halle champion Alexander Bublik is in this half of the draw but there must be real concerns that he will pull out after his exploits in Germany last week. Lorenzo Sonego and Miomir Kecmanovic are others who could go well.
Betting
I’ll take a chance on a couple of players at the prices this week. Marcos Giron is my pick in the top half. Clearly, Taylor Fritz is going to be a tough nut to crack but he has already won a grass tournament this term and I wonder if he is here purely to fulfil his obligations as a defending champion. Giron has only played one match on the grass this season which he lost comfortably against Alexander Zverev but it was only 10 months ago that he was winning on this surface in Newport so he can play on the grass. Fritz aside, there isn’t a huge amount in the top half of the draw so 33/1 on a player with a grass title in the last 12 months feels a little big to me.
Lorenzo Sonego is another player who has a grass court title on his CV. This came in Turkey six years ago but there aren’t many players in this field who can boast a title on the surface and to prove that wasn’t a fluke, the Italian made the final of this event three years ago so Devonshire Park holds some decent memories for him which is no bad thing. Although the Italian hasn’t done much in the two grass events he has played, he pushed Alexander Zverev to a deciding set tiebreak in Halle last week and that form line would hold up here. He’s in the bottom half of the draw where there are fitness doubts over Tommy Paul and not much else in the draw to worry about. I’ll pay to see how the Italian goes here.
Tips
Back M.Giron to win Lexus Eastbourne Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
Back L.Sonego to win Lexus Eastbourne Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
