The opening results were mixed for the Tennis Picks- Daniel Evans started far too slowly and was ultimately beaten pretty easily, but Stefanos Tsitsipas was a deserving winner against Lorenzo Sonego.
Tuesday is a much busier day in Dubai as the rest of the First Round is completed and three Tennis Picks have been found from the matches set to be played.
Again, anything from the ATP 500 event in Acapulco will be added to this thread, although the First Round at that tournament hasn't really flagged up too many appealing options and selections will be made as the tournament moves forward.
Arthur Fils - 1.5 games v Nuno Borges: He is not always one of the my favourite players to back having displayed periods in his relatively young career where the focus is not where it perhaps should be for Arthur Fils.
There is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of the 20 year old as French Tennis fans look for the next big star on the men's side of the Tour. Those who had been creating the headlines for the nation have largely moved into retirement, while Gael Monfils is closer to joining the likes of Richard Gasquet and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga than he is to someone that is largely starting out his career like Fils is.
Cracking the top 20 of the World Rankings already is clearly a positive sign, but Arthur Fils is still developing his tennis so he can get closer to the absolute elite of the ATP Tour.
After missing out in Doha, Arthur Fils has travelled to Dubai and has a decent First Round match up in front of him when taking on Nuno Borges.
A Semi Final run in Auckland aside, Nuno Borges has struggled for consistency and he enters this ATP 500 tournament as the World Number 38. Last week he was beaten in the Second Round by eventual Doha Champion, Andrey Rublev, but Nuno Borges was also beaten early in Marseille before that and his numbers on the hard courts have been steady, but unspectacular to open the season.
The same can be said for Arthur Fils, but the difference between the players is that the Frenchman might be having a bit more success on the return of serve. With both players serving as well as they have been, those extra points won on the return could make the difference in what is going to be a tight, competitive match, while Arthur Fils also holds the mental advantage.
He beat Nuno Borges twice on the hard courts in 2024 and Arthur Fils won all four sets that they played against one another.
In those two wins, Arthur Fils has been able to hold 94% of the service games played, while he broke the Nuno Borges serve eight times in the two matches. The last of those in Indian Wells was more competitive compared with the Arthur Fils win in Auckland, but it was still a match that the Frenchman looked the superior player and he can secure a victory in this First Round contest with the capabilities of covering this line set.
Marton Fucsovics - 2.5 games v Luca Nardi: Both of these players had to come through the Qualifiers, but it was Marton Fucsovics that has won two matches to earn his place in the main draw.
One of those wins was against Luca Nardi, but the latter has been offered a reprieve as a Lucky Loser and will be looking for revenge against the Hungarian.
Luca Nardi did reach the Second Round in Doha last week having won two Qualifiers to earn his spot in the main draw and he has reached a Final at Challenger level on this surface already this season. However, around those solid performances there have been some early exits and Nardi will know that he needs to step his level up if he is going to beat the veteran having already been beaten by Marton Fucsovics this week.
Injury has dropped Marton Fucsovics outside of the top 100 in the World Rankings, and he has just been rebuilding at Challenger level with a title won earlier this month.
You have to consider the level of opponents at Challenger level compared with the main ATP Tour, but Marton Fucsovics will have gained some confidence and his numbers have really caught the eye.
He will certainly feel he is facing someone who is not as comfortable on the hard courts as himself and that will help Marton Fucsovics as he looks to back up the victory over Luca Nardi from the weekend.
Marton Fucsovics is certainly trending in a positive direction in terms of the World Ranking and putting a victory on the board in the First Round and potentially having a strong run here in Dubai will be welcomed. He can do that by continuing to serve a bit more efficiently compared with Luca Nardi and that should see Marton Fucsovics win and cover this line.
Matteo Berrettini - 2.5 games v Gael Monfils: A couple of years of injury has unsurprisingly held Matteo Berrettini back, but the Italian looks to be getting back to the form that took him into the World's top ten in the Rankings.
He was also a considerable threat to win a Grand Slam, although some of the limelight has been taken away by Jannik Sinner who has come the poster boy of the sport, never mind Italian Tennis.
The Quarter Final run in Doha will have provided Matteo Berrettini a huge boost in confidence having beaten Novak Djokovic there, although he might be a little disappointed in losing to Jack Draper having led by a set. The serve continues to be a potent weapon for Berrettini, but he will be the first to admit that the return has to be improved if he is going to get back to the level he once had.
First up for Matteo Berrettini in Dubai is Gael Monfils and the veteran is returning to the Tour after a very productive January in which he won a title and reached the Fourth Round at the Australian Open. That run ended with a retirement and Gael Monfils has not played a competitive match since, and a back injury is always a concern considering the stress that serving and moving will put on the body.
The early successes were thanks to the strong serving that Gael Monfils produced- the level in January was far above the kind of standards that the Frenchman has been setting in recent years and maintaining that over the course of 2025 is perhaps asking too much at 38 years old.
It was important to serve well as Gael Monfils struggled with his return and he is not going to be expecting to get anything easy out of the Matteo Berrettini serve.
Matteo Berrettini has won the three previous matches against Gael Monfils, although the last of those was in January 2022.
What was key to those wins for the Italian was the stronger serving and you have to believe that the competitive tennis that has been played by Matteo Berrettini should set him up to win this one too. He may have the rhythm to get his serve firing a little more effectively than Gael Monfils and that could see the World Number 30 just come through a tight first set, before pulling away for a relatively comfortable win.
MY PICKS: Arthur Fils - 1.5 Games @ 1.80 Bet Victor (1 Unit)
Marton Fucsovics - 2.5 Games @ 1.75 Bet Victor (1 Unit)
Matteo Berrettini - 2.5 Games @ 1.83 Bet365 (1 Unit)
Weekly Update: 1-1, - 0.28 Units (2 Units Staked, - 14% Yield)
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