ATP Acapulco, Dubai & Santiago Tips: Stars in action as prep for March Masters intensifies

• Djokovic expected to deliver in Dubai

• Tough draw for Murray

• Top seed Musetti's price appeals

Djokovic odds-on to continue Dubai dominance

Main tour action begins this morning in Dubai in several hours time as a 32-man field, with all seeds not receiving byes, take to the courts in the UAE.

With the event being a 500 level tournament, there's been a pretty illustrious winners list over the last 20 years or so, with Roger Federer (8) and Novak Djokovic (5) being multiple winners and dominating over that time period.

Indeed, it is Djokovic who is the tournament favourite here this week. He's top seed as well, and odds-on for the title at 1.814/5 currently on the Exchange.

Daniil Medvedev, who has won back-to-back events over the last fortnight, is second favourite at 5.24/1. This will be Djokovic's first tournament following his Australian Open triumph, and it will be hoped by his supporters that he's over the injury issues he faced at Melbourne Park, particularly in the early rounds.

Medvedev in Djokovic's half of the draw

Both Djokovic and Medvedev have been drawn in the top half of the draw, and are therefore seeded to meet in the semi-finals.

The likes of Hubert Hurkacz, Dan Evans and Andy Murray, who was a finalist in Doha last week (lost 6-4 6-4 to Medvedev) will be doing their best to prevent a Djokovic v Medvedev last four clash.

Murray has a brutal draw against fifth seed Hurkacz, who travels to Dubai on the back of winning the ATP Marseille event last week, albeit facing no opposition inside the top 40.

Bottom half of draw looks competitive

The bottom half of the draw looks more open, with Felix Auger-Aliassime and Andrey Rublev looking like the obvious choices to make it through to the latter stages.

However, there's some players in the draw with talent and potential upside, including Jiri Lehecka, and also players capable of making matches high variance, such as Maxime Cressy and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Alexander Zverev also continues his return to tour following long-term injury, and is around even money against the improving Lehecka in round one, and the duo meet today in the last match on the card.

Baez pushing for favourite status in Santiago

Following Cameron Norrie's shock defeat of Carlos Alcaraz in Rio last night, this week's clay event looks far more open than the previous two weeks which were dominated by the above duo, who shared a title and runners-up spot between them in both events.

Neither are in the field in Santiago, with the likes of Lorenzo Musetti, Diego Schwartzman, Sebastian Baez and Francisco Cerundolo getting the benefit of not having to play round one instead.

Baez and Nicolas Jarry are vying for favourite status at around 8.27/1, illustrating quite how competitive the field should be here. Conditions look fairly medium-paced for clay court, so no particular player type is likely to derive considerable advantage according to historical data.

Baez has had an excellent last year or so on his preferred surface, winning a title over a weak field in Cordoba earlier in the month, and has a slight statistical edge over Cerundolo (the seed in his half of the draw) so the market looks about right here.

Musetti generously priced to win

Top seed Musetti has had a miserable 2023 to date, winning just once in four matches so far and losing to Jarry last week in Rio.

However, it's worth pointing out that the Italian was 1.608/13 to win that match, and now is slightly bigger-priced than Jarry to win this event from the same half of the draw.

If you think Musetti can get back to winning ways, he looks half-decent value at slightly bigger than Baez and Jarry.

Alcaraz favourite after switch to hard courts

Finally, both Alcaraz and Norrie make the trip to the hard courts of Acapulco where Alcaraz is top seed and tournament favourite at a current 3.39/4, with Casper Ruud hot on his heels as the second favourite.

Norrie, plus Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz, Holger Rune, Alex De Minaur and Matteo Berrettini are all well-placed in the market to challenge.

I think that this event largely depends on how Alcaraz can back up those two weeks on clay after coming back from long-term injury. He's evidently the best hard courter in the field (over 108% combined service/return points won in the last 12 months on the surface), and has a relatively straightforward opening quarter.

This is compared to the other three quarters which either have two main contenders in or a number of players capable of making a run to the latter stages.