Best bets for Monday's tennis exhibitions

We’ve seen a handful of tennis exhibitions throughout quarantine, and now they’re essentially being used as a preseason leading up to the restart in August. Here’s a look at the upcoming schedule, along with who is in the field, as we approach the true return to play August 3.

World Team Tennis: July 12-Aug 1

Sofia Kenin, Kim Clijsters, Danielle Collins, Sloane Stephens, Eugenie Bouchard, Monica Puig, Venus Williams, Sam Querrey, Taylor Fritz, Jack Sock

Berlin EXO Series: July 13-15, 17-19

Dominic Thiem, Jan-Lennard Struff, Jannik Sinner, Tommy Haas, Elina Svitolina, Kiki Bertens, Petra Kvitová, Julia Goerges, Anastasija Sevastova

UTR Spain Series: July 17-19, 24-26

Roberto Bautista Agut, Pablo Carreño Busta, Albert Ramos Viñolas, Roberto Carballés Baena, Jaume Munar, Feliciano López

Tipsport Elite: July 18-20

Karolína Plíšková, Petra Kvitová, Markéta Vondroušová, Karolína Muchová, Katerina Siniaková, Kristýna Plíšková

Overall, there are some high-quality events, and perhaps a couple more to be added over the next few weeks. All in all, there are going to be plenty of opportunities to get a fix of tennis in the sports betting world. Let’s look at the best bets here.

(During exhibitions, all plays are to win 2u — risk 2u on underdogs — unless noted otherwise.)

Bett1 Aces Berlin Exo

Roberto Bautista Agut ML (-155) vs. Jan-Lennard Struff

Dead heat in UTR with both posting 15.63 ratings (Struff’s is 15.29 since returning to play)
The real difference here comes via Elo ratings, where Bautista Agut is a +190 on grass, and has an implied win probability of 68.8%
This is actually Bautista Agut’s best surface, and he pops right behind the “Big 3” of Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal in grass court Elo rating, as well as raw grass rating
Struff is 0-8 on grass courts at tour level against top 20 players with just a 0.78 dominance ratio
Struff owns just a 12.8% break rate on grass at ATP Level, while Bautista Agut owns a 91.5% hold rate since 2018 on grass courts
Additionally, Bautista Agut is fourth in return points won percentage on grass over the last two years
I have Bautista Agut with a 73% match win probability (-270), so he is offering some excellent value in this matchup

Julia Goerges -1.5 games (-135) vs. Anastasija Sevastova

Interesting matchup here as neither have played since the shutdown
Goerges maintains a 13.00 UTR while Sevastova sits at 12.81, 34 spots lower than her world ranking (43rd)
Looking at Elo ratings, Goerges has about an 80-point advantage in both overall and grass court, indicating around a 61% match win probability
Sevastova had been just 1-6 prior to the shutdown, and 4-12 dating back to last summer’s U.S. Open Series
Goerges is among the best service players on the WTA Tour, boasting a career 9% ace rate on grass
Sevastova is 0-18 (0-4 on grass) against opponents posting an 8.5% ace rate or better. She has won around 30% of return points under that split, nearly 14% lower than her career average on grass courts

Petra Kvitova -1.5 sets/2-0 set betting (-135) vs. Andrea Petkovic

Petkovic’s first match since October. She had been sidelined with a knee injury, in which a setback in February required surgery
Kvitova has played in the Tipsport Elite event, sporting a 3-1 record (loss on clay)
Kvitova owns the UTR edge 13.31 to 12.80, while maintaining a +280 advantage in grass court Elo Rating
Kvitova’s a difficult task in Petkovic’s first match back, as she’ll make you pay for mistakes. Expecting match rust from Petkovic, this could get ugly quickly, as Kvitova ranks among the leaders in break points per set, break rate, second-serve return points won percentage, and hold rate on grass courts
I have Kvitova with an 83% match win probability (-495)

World Team Tennis

So DraftKings has found a way around-guessing what the matchup itself is by posting team lines in both women’s and men’s singles. To my knowledge, it’s rare the public eye finds out what the matchups for each rubber are ahead of time (some teams post on social media, some don’t). Looking at these two teams, it would appear Washington will either go Venus Williams, Bernarda Pera or Arina Rodionova, while New York has the option of either Kim Clijsters or Sabine Lisicki
Venus, Pera and Rodionova sport UTRs of 12.74, 12.73 and 12.42 respectively, while Clijsters is unrated and Lisicki’s UTR is 12.33
While Venus didn’t play great to begin the year, her level is absolutely miles ahead of Clijsters, who had been retired since 2012, and battled nagging injuries in the lead up to her return early this year, and Lisicki, who is a former top-20 player, but now ranked 587th, is just 16-22 on hardcourts since 2017, and 9-18 at WTA Tour level
In Clijsters’ two matches since returning from retirement, she got off to slow starts, with much more competitive second sets. That won’t help her here as matches are just one set, first to five games
Without a definitive matchup, it’s difficult to go into greater detail, but the Washington side has the advantage here, and if it turns out to be the high profile Venus vs. Clijsters matchup, I have Venus with close to a 75% win probability