Tournament Watch – WTA is back in action this week

WTA is back in action this week

It is refreshing to have a little bit of breathing space between the Australian Open and St Petersburg – usually a big hitting tournament for the women.

Also, we start to see the bigger names come back to action (with a couple of notable exceptions) on the ATP side.

ATP Rotterdam

Stefanos Tsitsipas is back in action after his drama filled semi-final at the Australian Open, but (maybe thankfully?!) we won’t be set for a rematch with Daniil Medvedev, who decided that the tournament was just a little too soon after that bruising final against Rafael Nadal.

Canada was the revelation of the Aussie swing, with Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Alissime stepping up after winning the ATP Cup to both have very impressive runs in Melbourne to reach the quarter-finals.

Defending champion Andrey Rublev is also in action.

WTA St Petersburg

It feels a lot more beneficial for there to have been a gap between the Australian Open and St Petersburg this year but what stands out is the number of names who really would have expected to do much better in Australia. 

Maria Sakkari and Anett Kontaveit surely can’t be far away for contending for majors, but they disappointed in Melbourne.

Former champion Petra Kvitova is also in the field, and her early exit from the Australian Open prompted questions about how much longer this beloved player would continue on, so she is well worth a watch to see if she can spark something this season.

ATP Buenos Aires

Sadly, it looks as though Juan Martin Del Potro will be using the Argentina Open and maybe Rio to say goodbye to the tour after a shocking run of injuries. The former US Open champion last played a tournament match in 2019, and has been plagued by left and right wrist injuries.

The field is led out by Norway’s Casper Ruud who had to pull out of the Australian Open with injury, and of course Argentina’s OTHER favourite son Diego Schwartzman. 

Del Potro admitted that his knee was causing him nightmares so if this is to be one of his farewell tournaments, your money might be better placed with some of the more established, and more importantly limb-intact clay-courters.

ATP Dallas

Not surprisingly it is a very US heavy field in Dallas, led by Taylor Fritz, who had a decent Slam run and pushed Stefanos Tsitsipas the distance in Melbourne.

A lot of big servers in the field, so maybe we need to rely on serve and volley stylings of Maxime Cressy to see if he could back up some of the waves he was creating in Melbourne. 

For the latest odds, check out bet365’s coupons for this week’s tournaments.