Andy Schooler brings you his best Monday Tennis Tips for this week’s ATP action, including first round bets from Bucharest, Houston and Marrakech.
Monday Tennis Tips: Andy Schooler’s Huge Preview March 31st 2025
Monday Tennis Tips: Yunchaokete Bu v Roberto Bautista Agut
Bautista Agut looks to be being priced up here on past reputation alone. The fact is he’s lost seven of his eight matches in 2025 and this will be his first on clay since last season’s French Open. In fairness, Bu has little claycourt experience at all but certainly didn’t look out of place on the surface when going down 7-6 6-4 to world number two Alex Zverev in Rio last month. He should take some confidence out of that match as he heads into the European clay campaign.
Critics will point out the Chinese’s own struggles so far this year – he’s 5-10 for the season – but he’s had some really tough draws. As well as Zverev, he’s also faced top-10 stars Taylor Fritz, Daniil Medvedev and Alex de Minaur, while there was also a final-set tie-break loss to Alex Michelsen. In short, he’s not playing as badly as his record might suggest and I feel this is a a very winnable match for the underdog.
Monday Tennis Tips: Daniel Galan v Mackenzie McDonald
I’m a bit surprised there’s not a bigger gap between these two in terms of price and, for me, Galan is worth backing at 1.62. That’s not a price I get involved with too often but here the Colombian is facing a player who has lost his last 11 claycourt matches. Admittedly, Houston offers some of the fastest clay conditions – this isn’t the same substance as you’ll see in Europe over the next two months – but McDonald has failed to take advantage in the past, losing all three matches he’s played at the Texan venue.
Galan will bring much greater confidence to the court. While McDonald will be playing his first match on this surface since last May, Galan has spent the past couple of months on the clay, winning two Challenger titles and racking up a 17-6 win-loss record since the Australian Open. He’s also won the pair’s previous claycourt meeting and I’d expect him to repeat the trick in this contest.
Monday Tennis Tips: Rinky Hijikata v Christopher Eubanks
These two are fish out of water when it comes to claycourt tennis and between them they ‘boast’ just two tour-level wins on the surface. Hijikata’s is the most significant – it came against Eubanks at this very venue 12 months ago. He’s now 2-0 against the American, whose poor return game is shown up in that series’ data – Eubanks has broken serve only once across those two matches.
Eubanks has lost his last nine on clay with his last victory on the surface coming back in 2023. And, sadly for him, his troubles have spread to other surfaces with only one of the last seven at all levels won and just one of five at tour level in 2025. He’s broken serve less than 6% of the time in those matches. It’s hard to be that confident about Hijikata but he looks in better shape at the moment and gets the nod.
Monday Tennis Tips: R1 Best Bets
Yunchaokete Bu to beat Roberto Bautista Agut @ 2.2 with kwiff
Daniel Galan to beat Mackenzie McDonald @ 1.62 with kwiff
Rinky Hijikata to beat Christopher Eubanks @ 1.66 with kwiff
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