Many tennis players took a week to catch their breath after the Australian Open ended in late January. Now, women’s tennis is well and truly back with the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open kicking off this week featuring a strong field in this WTA 500 event.
Nine of the world’s Top 20 will be present, with players either looking to maintain their Australian Open momentum or make up for early exits. Leading the pack will be January’s finalist Elena Rybakina, who will be hoping to take advantage of defending champion Arnya Sabalenka not being present this week. However, plenty of other women will be wanting to get in Rybakina’s way in what should be a fantastic week of tennis. We look at all the outright betting odds with bookmaker William Hill and outline the best bets to make before the first serve on Monday.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: February 5th, 9:00 P.M. (GMT)
Elena Rybakina is in fantastic form so far this year and it shows in the betting odds. The World No. 10 is leading the betting odds heading into the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open 2023 with a pay out of 4.50 if she wins the tournament. Next, Swiss player Belinda Bencic is at 7.00, a solid second favourite behind Rybakina. The odds drop off from here with last year’s runner up Veronika Kudermetova, Danielle Collins and Barbora Krejcikova rounding out the top five favourites with odds between 9.50 to 11.00.
It’s not rocket science, but backing Elena Rybakina to win here is the obvious bet. She spent two weeks tearing through the Australian Open draw in January dispatching the likes of Danielle Collins, Iga Swiatek, Jelena Ostapenko and Victoria Azarenka en route to the final, which she lost narrowly to Arnya Sabalenka. If the Kazakh hits the ball in Abu Dhabi nearly as well as she hit it in Melbourne, she should be good for the title here.
As the fourth seed, Rybakina does not have a straight forward path, meaning her odds are a healthy 4.50. Her first match will likely be against World No. 20 Karolina Pliskova before a potential quarterfinal against Beatriz Haddad Maia, and a semifinal against Belinda Bencic. In the final, she’ll most likely run into Daria Kasatkina or Veronika Kudermetova.
Latvian Jelena Ostapenko could also be a good dark horse bet here. The 25-year-old is paying very lucrative odds of 19.00 to win the tournament and is positioned well to make a strong run. She recently lost to Rybakina in the Australian Open quarterfinals, before which she’d shown excellent form to dispatch Coco Gauff in straight sets. She’s on track to play top seed Daria Kasatkina in a quarterfinal and is one to watch here.
