ATP Banja Luka Tips & Preview | Our Picks For This Week’s Tennis

The picturesque city of Banja Luka in Bosnia is the host for the Srpska Open, moving from Belgrade. Novak Djokovic is the main attraction here and thousands of fans will flock to see him play here, will he win though?

The venue at Banja Luka has held a Challenger tournament for almost 20 years so tennis is well used to coming to Bosnia.

Despite the city being located in Bosnia it is overwhelmingly inhabited by Serbs, so in a similar way to Belgrade, this is a home tournament for Djokovic, and one designed to appeal to the people in this region.

Last year in Belgrade Djokovic was quite underwhelming in his performances, dropping the opening set in every one of his matches. In the end he made the final, but lost to Andrey Rublev 6-0 in the final set. Rublev is here again after his Monte-Carlo Masters victory.

The field isn’t as strong as last year, but Djokovic cannot be backed at such a short price, so we hunt for some each way value with the selections.

ATP Banja Luka Betting Tips

Alex Molcan 0.5pt EW @ 40/1 (now 28/1) with Bet365

The Slovakian won a couple of rounds at both Indian Wells and Miami, before having to withdraw, but there was enough there in his performances to suggest that he is in decent touch, as long as he is fit.

Molcan has a clay court Challenger title to his name, which is proof enough that he can handle the surface. In addition, he has made three finals on the main ATP Tour, all on clay, and one of them was in the equivalent Belgrade tournament to this one. His only top ten win was also on clay so there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is his most effective surface at this level.

He has a decent draw and there is a potential path through to the latter stages for him.

Laslo Djere 0.5pt EW @ 16/1 with Bet365

The Serbian is a clay court specialist. All of his titles are on clay, including the ATP500 Rio title, the biggest of his career so far.

Whilst I wouldn’t back him to beat Djokovic, no other Serbian will surely manage to beat their idol, he could easily make the final here at a good price. If he gets through his first round match then he faces Borna Coric, probably the easiest of the top four seeds, and then Tallon Griekspoor is the other seeded player in Djere’s section, someone that I’m sure that Djere would feel confident in defeating.

ATP Banja Luka Draw

The draw in Banja Luka is a 28-player draw, with 8 seeds. The top four seeds have received byes into the second round.