ATP Geneva Preview and Picks

Favorites, top seeds, and dark horses to watch

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History

This will be the 18th edition of the tournament, staged in Tennis Club de Genève. The Event has rich history despite the low number of events being played. It started from 1980 but was removed from the calendar between 1992-2014. Mats Wilander and Stan Wawrinka have won the title twice.

Like numerous events in 2020 this one was scratched from the calendar due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alexander Zverev defeated Nicolas Jarry to claim the title in 2019, but both opted out of playing here and defend their points.         

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Favorites and Top Seeds

The long-awaited return of Roger Federer happens here on home Swiss soil.

"I have been playing tennis a lot in the last few weeks. All good. My knee reacts differently sometimes after a match compared to when I train. So let's see how it goes now in a match. It's been a difficult year for many of us with the virus. My double knee surgery is like the smallest of the problem. It's really exciting to see what's left in the tank for me, the fire is there, it's burning. I used this time also to spend time with the family and not travel so much."

This will be Roger’s 3rd tournament played since beginning of 2020. In March returning from double knee injury he lost in the QF in Doha to Nikoloz Basilashvili.

The Swiss is the 1st seed of the tournament and his ranking has been mostly untouched due to covid-19 ranking rule that made it possible points from 2019 to be protected and defended in 2021. This will be the only Clay court tune up tournament for the Maestro before competing in the 2nd Grand Slam of the year – The French Open.

He has been dealt a quite challenging draw with clay courter #22 Cristian Garin being his first potential seed he could face in the 3rd round with in-form Casper Ruud in the ¼ finals.

Grigor Dimitrov and Dennis Shapovalov wrap up the seeds from the bottom part of the draw, as the extra week created by moving French Open 1 week back made this tournament better as it made it possible for players to try it here have rest and then go to Paris.

Casper Ruud has a question mark coming in, as he was derailed a good struck of form making it into the SF in Munich and more importantly SF in Madrid losing close match to Berrettini only to withdrew from Rome citing a wrist injury.

Interesting topic this coming week will be how the progress of Denis Shapovalov on the red continues. After losing to Moutet in Estoril and Bublik in Madrid out of nowhere to many including me,he was on the verge of scoring a huge upset defeating Rafael Nadal in the 3rd round of Rome. Leading 6-4,3-0 and and 6-4,3-1,40-0 he somehow lost the 2nd set, had 2 MP on Nadal’s last service game before ultimately losing the match in the deciding tie-break. Everyone doubted how his backhand would fare against the heavy top spin that Nadal has, but the Canadian surprised many, including me.      

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Underdogs and Dark Horses

On any given day Fabio Fognini can beat anyone especially on clay and he is my favorite pick to disrupt the bottom part of the draw where Shapovalov and Dimitrov are. He hasn’t been able to strike some wins together since Monte Carlo, and even got defaulted in Barcelona for going absolutely nuts losing his temper and hurled verbal abuse that was picked up by a line judge. Expect him to have a run sooner or later and his draw looks good here in Geneva to do so.

Reilly Opelka is a name that usually comes up on hard courts and Grass where his lack of movement, but big serves can bail him out almost all the time, but however he is in a quite run in Rome making it to the Semifinals while refusing to get his serve broken whole week. He is only 4-2 on clay this year but given his wins were all underdog ones his ROI is 105%....

His deep run in Italy puts him in a danger zone and a candidate for late withdrawal in Geneva though as I seen him put lot of effort in Rome that could create fatigue for the big guy and decide to skip travelling that soon.

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Picks

Believe the market will be heavily depended on Federer’s return, creating value on the top part of the draw whereas already mentioned guys like Garin and Ruud could potentially come out on top so would be looking at bets for both to win that part of the draw or why not even placing each way outright bets on both.

   

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