There’s just one tournament this week, The ATP Open Occitanie 2025 Montpellier – and Andy Schooler is back with his best first-round match bets.
ATP Open Occitanie 2025: Andy Schooler’s Huge Monday Tips
There’s a limited coupon to sink our teeth into this week with just one ATP Tour event taking place – the Davis Cup Qualifiers later in the week are taking precedence for most players. Seeking out value therefore looks pretty tough but I’m prepared to take a chance on Gasquet here as the underdog. He’s won this title on three occasions during his illustrious career, one which will come to an end at Roland Garros in a few months’ time.
ATP Open Occitanie 2025: Adrian Mannarino v Richard Gasquet
This will therefore be his final appearance at his most successful event and I’m sure he’ll be out to make an impact. He leads Mannarino 3-1 across their previous meetings and while some of those were many years ago, when these two veterans met last season, Gasquet lost only four games. That was part of a miserable campaign for Mannarino and he’s not really managed to break the funk a great deal. Perhaps a move to indoor conditions could work for him but Gasquet will also be thinking the same after disappointing in Australia and he’ll be only too happy to be back in Montpellier.
ATP Open Occitanie 2025: Lucas Pouille v Mattia Bellucci
The French have long risen to the occasion in Montpellier with players from the host nation winning eight of the 14 titles on offer over the years, as well as providing numerous finalists. Pouille, the champion back in 2018, is unlikely to feature in the final this year but I like his chances against Bellucci, who was poor during the recent swing Down Under, his only win in four matches coming against Pavle Marinkov, the 18-year-old world number 792.
The Italian remains pretty inexperienced at tour level – this will be just his 16th such match and he’s only won six of the first 15. I doubt he’ll have played in such a partisan atmosphere as this either, with the home crowd set to roar on their man. Pouille is not the player he was when he lifted this trophy seven years ago but he should enjoy being back indoors in France. He certainly enjoyed things when last back in his homeland, winning a Challenger title on indoor hard in France back in the autumn, during a period which also saw him reach two other finals in tennis’ ‘second division’.
Notably, Pouille also has a good record against left-handers – his win-rate against them is 63%, five percentage points higher than against righties. He stayed competitive against eventual finalist Alex Zverev at the Australian Open and I feel he can win this one. He’s 1.6 to get the job done. That’s perhaps a little short for me to be putting up in this column but I’m happy to play Pouille to win 2-0 in the set betting at 2.5.
ATP Open Occitanie 2025: R1 Best Bets
Richard Gasquet to beat Adrian Mannarino @ 2.0 with kwiff
Lucas Pouille to beat Mattia Bellucci 2-0 @ 2.5 with kwiff
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