ATP Tennis Doha Preview 2019
The new season of the ATP gets into full swing and before we know it the Australian Open will be firing up into action. Novak Djokovic is out in action in Doha where he is the headlining act and also the 8/15 odds-on favourite* (betting odds taken on December 30th, 2018 at 4:22 pm). After a strong end of the 2018 season, he will be looking to come out swinging.
ATP Doha Odds*
Novak Djokovic 8/15
Karen Khachanov 9/1
Dominic Thiem 10/1
David Goffin 10/1
Roberto Bautista-Agut 22/1
Stan Wawrinka 25/1
Fernando Verdasco 25/1
Andrey Rublev 33/1
Tomas Berdych 33/1
40/1 bar
* (betting odds taken on December 30th, 2018 at 4:22 pm)
ATP Doha Preview
So it is Novak Djokovic who is the man to beat in Qatar. He is defending his title there as well after beating Andy Murray in last season’s Final. That in itself was a title-defence for Djokovic there as well. At the back end of the 2018 season, Djokovic won two ATP Masters 1000 titles, the US Open and finished runner-up at the Paris Masters and the ATP World Tour Finals in his final five tournaments of the season.
That was some finish from him and he is the world number one to boot after Rafa Nadal wasn’t fit enough to compete in the 2018 ATP World Tour Finals. Djokovic has a great affinity with Doha and he is on a ten-match winning streak there. Frankly, there should not be too much standing in his way really, with potentially a quarter-final against Nikoloz Basilashvili being a potential banana skin.
Karen Khachanov could be a player who punters will turn to in order to oppose Djokovic. He was one of the hottest players last season on Tour and he took a win over Djokovic in the ATP Masters 1000 Paris final for his first title at that level. The Russian is a massive hitter of the ball and he could be in line for another showdown with Djokovic which would be in the semi-final stage.
David Goffin and Dominic Thiem will be happy with the draw in terms of being on the opposite side of it to Djokovic. Thiem is the number two seed for the tournament as he looks for his third hard court title. He is the man to beat in the bottom half of the draw while Belgium’s David Goffin is the one that he could meeting at the semi-final stage of the tournament. Looking at the draw there is a good chance for one of them to make a deep run.
Prediction
Djokovic is clearly the one to beat here. If he comes out playing like he did at the back end of the 29018 season then he is going to take store stopping. You can only assume that he is pretty well rested and the draw ahead is comfortable enough for him to land a title defence.
