It feels like tennis season never actually slows down, but that’s a great thing for bettors. This sport offers all sorts of betting opportunities, which is why I’m going to provide you with tennis best bets as often as possible throughout the 2025 season. Over the next week seven days, the ATP and WTA Tours are posted up at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, California. This venue is known as “Tennis Paradise” and many consider this 1000-level event to be the fifth slam. That said, all of the top players are in the fields, making this a tournament you won’t want to miss. With that in mind, keep reading for my Indian Wells best bets for Monday, March 10th. I’ll include some of my favorite plays below, but make sure you also monitor the picks page throughout the day. Gill Alexander posts his best bets there. I’ll also occasionally add plays based on how lines are moving.
Hubert Hurkacz vs. Alex de Minaur
Hurkacz’s big serve is the reason he has been as high as No. 6 in the ATP rankings. However, Hurkacz doesn’t have much outside of that massive weapon, and the slow conditions at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden will make it harder on him to breeze through his service games. Hurkacz actually had some trouble doing that against Hugo Gaston, but the Frenchman wasn’t able to take advantage of the openings that were there for him. De Minaur won’t have the same problem. The Australian is second to only Carlos Alcaraz when it comes to break percentage over the last 52 weeks. He’s as good as it gets at getting his racquet on the ball and getting things back to neutral.
De Minaur has also made significant strides when it comes to his own serve, and he has also added some pop from the forehand side. So, I’m not sure I see Hurkacz finding a lot of success as a returner here, and I like de Minaur to dominate baseline exchanges. It’s nearly impossible to hit through de Minaur, and Hurkacz isn’t exactly a player that can crunch winners. De Minaur should be able to outlast him in most longer rallies, and the Australian should also be able to move the Pole around with his forehand.
All in all, I see this being a somewhat straightforward win for de Minaur. However, we are going to need one of the sets to end without a tiebreaker. So, let’s root for a couple of breaks.
Bet: De Minaur -2.5 Games (-125)
Denis Shapovalov vs. Carlos Alcaraz
Karen Khachanov vs. Ben Shelton
I like Shapovalov and Khachanov to be competitive in their respective matches, but I feel better about finding alternative routes to play them. That said, I’m parlaying Shapovalov to cover an alternate game spread of 6.5 with Khachanov to win a set.
Shapovalov is playing Alcaraz in what is arguably the Spaniard’s best tournament. Alcaraz has won this event in back-to-back years, and he absolutely loves a slower outdoor hard court. However, Alcaraz has looked somewhat vulnerable to start the 2025 season. Meanwhile, Shapovalov is back to looking like a top-15 player. Shapovalov is already 11-4 in the new season, and he won a big 500-level event in Dallas in February. Along the way, Shapovalov beat Miomir Kecmanovic, Taylor Fritz, Tomas Machac, Tommy Paul and Casper Ruud. It’s just clear that Shapovalov is back to being trustworthy in big matches. The lefty’s hold percentage is also up at 82.4% and his break percentage is 24.9%, so his statistics back up the eye test. With that in mind, I’m putting some faith in the Canadian to keep this thing from getting out of hand. Shapovalov has shown restraint in longer rallies this year, helping him to avoid high unforced error counts. That should help him find success against Alcaraz.
In the other match, I like Khachanov to simply force a deciding third set. Khachanov just turned in a strong performance against Jakub Mensik, who is like Shelton in that he’s a young player with a massive serve and some real power along the baseline. So, Khachanov should be able to hang around with another performance like that, even if Shelton is a lefty and has a better set of wheels on him. Realistically, Shelton is another player that should struggle with these conditions. While the court speeds mean that he can use his legs to get to more balls, his serve isn’t as big of a factor and longer rallies give him more time to make mistakes. I also like that Khachanov’s down-the-line backhand, a lethal shot in this sport, will find Shelton’s backhand, which is still a question mark for the young American.
PARLAY: Shapovalov +6.5 Games & Khachanov +1.5 Sets (-150 – 1.5 units)
Maria Sakkari vs. Coco Gauff
I can’t say I feel great about the way Sakkari has played over the last couple of years. The former world No. 3 is just 27-23 since the start of 2024. However, Sakkari did look good in a 6-0, 6-3 win over Viktoriya Tomova last round. The 29-year-old also happens to play some great tennis at Indian Wells, where she is a two-time runner-up — with two losses to Iga Swiatek. One of those trips to the finals was last year. So, Sakkari should be feeling confident now that she’s back on one of her favorite courts, and this play is really more of a fade on Gauff anyway.
Gauff comes into this match after having lost three of her last four, and she needed a third-set tiebreaker to get by Moyuka Uchijima last match. That’s hardly inspiring. Gauff’s forehand is once again leaking errors, which is a shame considering she was hitting that shot extremely well towards the end of 2024. But perhaps more concerning is the fact that her double-fault percentage has been in double digits in two of the last three matches. She has also made fewer than 50.0% of her second serves in five straight outings.
If Gauff can’t avoid double faults and unforced errors, it really doesn’t matter who she’s facing. But Sakkari also happens to be a tough opponent for a mistake-prone player. She’s a wall along the baseline and will do whatever she can to extract errors out of Gauff.
Bet: Sakkari +1.5 Sets (+100 – 1.5 units) & Sakkari ML (+310 – 0.5 units)
