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Dan previews this week's ATP events
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Rublev could exploit Medvedev fatigue
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Andy Murray and Cameron Norrie both in action
Favourites dominated last week
There were victories for tournament favourites last week with Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz and Daniil Medvedev all winning on Sunday. Pleasingly, though, we did get our each-way bet converted on Cameron Norrie on the clay of Buenos Aires, with the Brit losing 6-3 7-5 to Alcaraz in the final.
All three winners have put down a strong marker for the March hard court Masters series in America, with Alcaraz's return to tour from injury - albeit on clay - showing that he's wasted little time in getting back to winning ways.
Sinner's draw makes him solid favourite
Prior to those events in Miami and Indian Wells there are further tournaments this week across a variety of surfaces. Qualifying only concluded yesterday afternoon, so it was impossible to know the full field for the tournaments as the first round started.
With action several hours away (on Tuesday morning), now seems an appropriate time to look at this week's tournament fields.
Indoors in Marseille, Hubert Hurkacz, Grigor Dimitrov, Alex de Minaur and Jannik Sinner (who lost to Medvedev last week indoors in the Rotterdam final) are seeds with first-round byes.
Sinner is a fairly strong market favourite at 2.8815/8 on the Exchange at the time of writing with the outrights still looking to gain a little more liquidity.
A very straightforward-looking bottom quarter for second seed Sinner has influenced the market. There are few threats in the bottom half of the draw. Alex De Minaur is the seed and main rival, while the big-serving Maxime Cressy in quicker conditions might also be a tricky, high-variance opponent.
I'd be very surprised if top seed Hurkacz didn't make it through quarter one, which looks pretty weak, and he could well face a repeat of his defeat last week to Grigor Dimitrov in the semi-finals.
Zverev looks vulnerable
Over in Doha, played on outdoor hard court, Medvedev is tournament favourite to continue his winning streak at 2.6213/8. Felix Auger-Aliassime, Andrey Rublev and Alexander Zverev are next up in the outright market, trading below or around 10.09/1 at the time of writing.
Zverev, who has underwhelmed on his return to tour following long-term injury, faces a cracking clash against Andy Murray in round two after the Scotsman's dramatic final set tiebreak win over Lorenzo Sonego yesterday.
Rublev could exploit Medvedev fatigue
The quarter/half with Zverev as the seed with the bye looks the most likely to yield a surprise package, with Botic Van De Zandschulp at around 30.029/1 one who could potentially come through the field.
Murray at around 17.016/1 will also have his supporters, but whoever does come through that second quarter will face a tough potential semi-final against Andrey Rublev.
Rublev would be an underdog against Medvedev, but it will be interesting to see how the tournament favourite copes with a week indoors in Rotterdam and then travelling to Qatar before playing his opener on Wednesday. Fatigue could be a problem.
Alcaraz heavy favourite for Rio title
In Rio de Janeiro, no seeds have first-round byes but it is Alcaraz who is an overwhelming favourite to back up his Buenos Aires win, trading at 1.625/8 on the Exchange right now.
There could well be a repeat of the final with Cameron Norrie second seed in the opposite half of the draw. Sebastian Baez and Francisco Cerundolo will have decent chances of getting through quarter two and three, respectively.
There's a pretty big ability differential between the market leaders and the rest of the field in this event, so it would be a surprise if the market leaders didn't progress to the latter stages.