It feels like the tennis season never 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 two weeks, the ATP and WTA Tours stop 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 this week, making this a tournament you won’t want to miss. With that in mind, keep reading for my Indian Wells best bets for Friday, March 7th. 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.
Marcos Giron vs. Casper Ruud
It might not seem like a good “value” play to back Ruud as a -172 favorite, but that depends on how you look at it. Sure, this isn’t a sexy plus-money pick, and backing big favorites is definitely dangerous if you’re doing it somewhat often. However, a -172 price suggests Ruud wins this match 63.24% of the time, and that seems absurdly low to me.
Giron is a rock-solid player when it comes to slower hard courts, as he doesn’t give up on points and is pretty good about transitioning from defense to offense. But there’s not much that he does better than Ruud. Over the last 52 weeks, Ruud has a higher hold percentage and break percentage. The Norwegian also happens to have an elite forehand, which will easily be the best weapon on the court. And overall, we know that Ruud is a good player in slow conditions, as evidenced by his dominant play on clay courts.
Ruud also happened to beat up on Giron in similar conditions last year, beating him 6-1, 6-0 on the slow courts in Los Cabos. Ruud is also 2-1 in three ATP-level meetings with Giron. With all of that in mind, I’m backing Ruud to get the job done here.
Bet: Ruud ML (-172)
NOTE: I added more to this at -175. My total risk is now 3.47 units to win 2 units. It’ll sting a bit if this loses, but this number is way off to me.
Roman Safiullin vs. Lorenzo Musetti
Safiullin is coming off one of the most impressive opening-round performances of anybody at Indian Wells. The Russian went down a break in the first set against Reilly Opelka, one of the best servers on the planet, and the American actually served for the first set at 5-4. But Safiullin ended up breaking him and ultimately rattled off five games in a row to win the set. All throughout the match, Safiullin was finding ways to get Opelka’s massive serve back in play, and he was also hitting some ferocious shots from the baseline. Now, it’s hard not to like his chances of beating Musetti.
I’m a huge fan of Musetti’s game and have even mentioned on my Tennis Channel show that I view him as a potential top-five player down the road. However, Musetti has a 60-68 record on hard courts, despite being 73-46 on natural surfaces. He just hasn’t figured out how to play his best tennis on this surface. On top of that, the Italian missed most of the Golden Swing with an injury. So, he could very well be rusty coming into this one, and there’s no guarantee he’ll even finish this match.
With all of that in mind, I’m backing Safiullin to win this one. And I’ll take it a step further by mentioning that I’m playing it at FanDuel, as they’re now paying out plays when players retire in the first set. So, if Safiullin is up early and Musetti decides he can’t go, you’ll be rewarded with a win.
Bet: Safiullin ML (-135 – 1.5 units)
Cameron Norrie vs. Jiri Lehecka
Damir Dzumhur vs. Frances Tiafoe
If it isn’t clear by now, I love a good two-leg tennis parlay. So, on Friday, I’m rolling with Norrie to win a set against Lehecka and Tiafoe to defeat Dzumhur.
Norrie has fallen off quite a bit from when he was world No. 9 back in 2022, but he’s just 29 years old and looks to be figuring some things out. In fact, Norrie comes into this match after having won three of his last five matches, and the two losses were extremely tight ones against Alex Michelsen and Learner Tien. Now, Norrie is back at an event that he won back in 2021, and he’s clearly enjoying the slow, windy conditions. Norrie just pounded Luca Nardi in a 6-0, 6-3 win in the opening round. Well, with Norrie once again looking like one of the game’s toughest competitors, I like him to make Lehecka work for a win. Lehecka has a massive game, aided by a booming first serve and a ton of pop from the baseline. But Norrie is a good returner and a cerebral baseliner. He should be able to give Lehecka some trouble with his high tennis IQ and tricky playing style.
For the other part of it, I just struggle to see Tiafoe losing this match. Big Foe is at his best on American soil, where he really feeds off the energy of a good crowd. Well, the crowds in the desert absolutely love to give American players a little extra boost. Tiafoe is also just a lot more reliable than Dzumhur as a server. Dzumhur is also just 86-100 on hard courts at the ATP level, and most of his recent success has come on clay. And while this tournament can play a little like a clay-court tournament, you need some power to hit through the courts and rack up holds. I’m not sure Dzumhur has enough.
PARLAY: Norrie +1.5 Sets & Tiafoe ML (+101 – 1.5 units)
