Dubai, Doha, Rio de Janeiro tennis best bets for February 19th
This week, the top women in the world are in Dubai for the Dubai Duty Free Championships. This is the second 1000-level WTA event of the season, and I’ll be writing up tennis best bets for this one all week. Meanwhile, the men are scattered all over the globe, as there are 500-level tournaments in Doha and Rio de Janeiro. I’ll also be writing up best bets for those tournaments, so you’ll find a lot of my plays in these daily predictions stories. That said, keep reading for my best bets for Wednesday, February 19th, and check out the picks page for all of my action for smaller tournaments and Challengers.
I’m going to quickly hit on some of my favorite picks below, and I occasionally add some picks throughout the day. Schedules can get wonky with the international nature of the sport, and I also like to see how odds are moving. That said, keep checking the picks page every couple of hours if you want more of my picks.
MORE: Check out our Pro Picks page for everything our experts are betting!
Linda Noskova vs. Jessica Pegula – Dubai
Pegula is a better player than Noskova right now, but the Czech phenom has the potential to win multiple Grand Slams in the future. And we have seen the 20-year-old in great form in recent weeks. In fact, Noskova already has three top-15 wins to start the 2025 season, and I’m just not sure there’s much preventing her from picking up a fourth. Pegula is probably the sturdier of these two players, but Noskova’s firepower and boldness from the baseline will stand out here. And if she’s even close to her top level, she should be able to push Pegula around and dictate the way this match is played. We just need to hope that Noskova continues to do a decent job as a server, but her improvements in that regard seem legit. I also like that Noskova just emerged from a hard-fought match against Diana Shnaider last round. Being battle-tested is never a bad thing.
Bet: Noskova ML (+120 – 1.5 units)
Sofia Kenin vs. Jasmine Paolini – Dubai
I’m going right back to Kenin after her big win over Marta Kostyuk on Tuesday. Paolini is very dangerous in these conditions, which isn’t surprising considering she’s the defending champion here. However, Kenin just landed 70.5% of her first serves, marking the fifth match in a row in which she has done that. She continues to find the box at a relatively high clip, and pretty much every statistic shows that her serve is the best it has been since 2020. That was the best year of her career, and it’s one in which she won a Grand Slam title.
Kenin simply looks the part of a top-20 player right now, but she’s still being priced like the inconsistent mess she has been for the better part of four years now. Well, I strongly believe that’s a mistake, as I don’t think we’re too far away from the 26-year-old making herself a presence at the top of the sport again. When Kenin is serving well and taking her time from the baseline, she can beat anyone on the planet. That includes an out-of-form version of Paolini.
Bet: Kenin +1.5 Sets (-120 – 1.5 units) & Kenin ML (+202 – 0.5 units)
Zizou Bergs vs. Daniil Medvedev – Doha
Hamad Medjedovic vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime – Doha
Medvedev dropped the first set against Karen Khachanov on Tuesday, but he ended up bouncing back and winning 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Medvedev credited an equipment change for the good result, noting that he needed a racquet that could help him generate power with dead balls and the slow conditions in Doha. Well, Medvedev has been searching for something all season. Perhaps this can get him going. We all know Medvedev can defend the baseline at a very high level, but having some more pop makes him more dangerous as a server and allows him to find the occasional winner late in longer rallies. And overall, assuming Medvedev can find the level that helped him get through Khachanov, there’s no recent he can’t top Bergs. While I do like Bergs’ game, I think that an in-form Medvedev can extract a lot of errors out of him. And even with Medvedev’s decline as a server, he’s probably still more reliable than Bergs with the ball in his racquet. The Russian is also the much better returner.
To get Medvedev down to more reasonable odds, I’m parlaying him to win with Auger-Aliassime to beat Medjedovic. Honestly, I probably would have found a way to back Medjedovic if I knew he was healthy coming into this one. The Serbian made a run to the final in Marseille last week, and he just knocked off Stefanos Tsitsipas in his first match here. Medjedovic is an awesome talent and should be a mainstay on tour moving forward. However, he did badly injure himself doing a split late in the Tsitsipas match, and I just don’t see him beating Auger-Aliassime with his movement compromised.
PARLAY: Medvedev ML & Auger-Aliassime ML (-149 – 1.5 units)
NOTE: Don’t be surprised if Medjedovic pulls out of this tournament. His injury looked legitimate. If that happens, you’ll more or less be sitting there with a play on Medvedev to win outright. I’m personally fine with that, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Francisco Comesana vs. Nicolas Jarry – Rio de Janeiro
This match should be similar to the one between Comesana and Gustavo Heide. There wasn’t a single break in the first two sets of that match, and we only saw some breaks in the third because the two players were exhausted. Well, this is a match in which breaks should be hard to come by. For Jarry, he’s just a giant with a booming first serve and the ability to crunch plus-one winners when his opponents do happen to get returns in play. And while Comesana isn’t much of a server, he can take advantage of very weak returners by taking some pace off and really focusing on hitting his spots. That’s exactly what he did to Heide. Comesana actually racked up 16 aces in that match.
All in all, the way this match will be played could very well mean a lengthy straight-set match, with one of the two sets being a tiebreaker and the other one being 6-3 or so. However, the most likely scenario would be a long three-set battle.
Bet: Over 21.5 Games (-158 – 1.5 units)
Additional Plays
I usually have A LOT MORE on the Pro Picks page. These plays count towards my record and have been a big part of my success in the past. Make sure you check them out. I’ll probably add a few more over there, so refresh that page throughout the day. My 250-level and Challenger-level action will live exclusively on the Pro Picks page.
