Tennis Betting Tips: Raducanu to oust Anisimova?

The 2025 Canadian Open has produced its fair share of entertainment so far, and I'm expecting more thrills and spills on Friday with the likes of Naomi Osaka and Madison Keys in action in Montreal (WTA), and Andrey Rublev among those taking to court in Toronto (ATP).

Below are my Friday Tennis Betting Tips as I look to land us three winners ahead of the weekend.

Game Handicap 3 - Emma Raducanu (GBR) -2.5 vs Amanda Anisimova (USA) @ 1/1

Emma Raducanu continued her fine form this calendar year with a straight-sets victory over Peyton Stearns (6-2, 6-4) in the Canadian Open second round on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old has now won seven of her last nine matches, all of which have finished 2-0, and her only defeats since the start of the July have come against World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka (6-7, 4-6) in the third round of Wimbledon, and Anna Kalinskaya (4-6, 3-6) in the Washington Open semi-finals.

In Montreal on Friday, the Brit faces, on paper, a tough test against this year's Wimbledon runner-up, Amanda Anisimova, in the third round of the Canadian Open.

However, Anisimova suffered a humiliating defeat in the Wimbledon final last month as she was double-bagelled on Centre Court by Iga Swiatek. After nearly three weeks off, the 23-year-old returned to action in the early hours (BST) of Thursday, beating Lulu Sun (6-4, 7-6) in the Canadian Open second round, but it was far from straightforward for the World No. 7, whose serve was broken twice by the Australian, including in the very first game of the match.

Anisimova hit back quickly, breaking Sun in the next game, but her next opponent, Raducanu, will sense an opportunity in Montreal, having broken nine times already at this year's Canadian Open.

Raducanu has overcome a -2.5 game handicap in her last 17 completed victories (excludes McCartney Kessler's retirement at the Miami Open in March), and two of those victories came against Anisimova, in their only two previous meetings.

The British No. 1 triumphed 6-3, 7-5 at the Australian Open in January before easing to a 6-1, 6-3 success at the Miami Open in March, with both matches played on hard court.

Raducanu has won five of her last six contests on the surface, while it's three in the same number for Anisimova, although three in her last four does make for kinder reading.

Still, it's the Brit who I'm tipping to reach the last 16 this weekend, and we can increase the odds to EVS by backing her at -2.5 on the handicap.

Game Handicap 2 - Iga Swiatek (POL) -7.5 vs Eva Lys (GER) @ 6/5

World No. 3 Swiatek is in red-hot form, winning 16 of her last 18 matches, a run that saw her finish as runner-up at the French Open and Bad Homburg Open before her annihilation of Anisimova at SW17 to claim a maiden Wimbledon title.

Like the American, Swiatek returned to the court this week, beating Hanyu Guo 6-3, 6-1 to set up a third-round meeting with Eva Lys in Montreal.

The Pole is making tennis look very easy right now, dropping just six games across her last three matches, and bagelling three sets out of six.

Swiatek has overcome a -7.5 game handicap in each of those contests, and did so in her latest head-to-head with her upcoming opponent in the last 16 of the Australian Open in January, blitzing the German 6-0, 6-1 in Melbourne.

The 24-year-old's only other match against Lys, at the 2022 Stuttgart Open, saw her ease to a 6-1, 6-1 success, so the statistics make for ominous reading heading into Friday's encounter.

To Lys' credit, she heads into this match on the back of successive straight-set victories in Montreal, beating Leolia Jeanjean (6-1, 6-4) and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (6-3, 6-4).

However, she's lost half (four) of her last eight on hard courts, while Swiatek has suffered just two defeats in her last 10 on this surface, and she will have to step her game up majorly to trouble the six-time Grand Slam winner here.

I hope we see a more competitive contest on Friday, but unfortunately, given Swiatek's on-court dominance in recent months, I see only one outcome here - a comfortable victory for the Pole.

Set Betting - Ben Shelton (USA) 2-0 vs Brandon Nakashima (USA) @ 21/20

Following last week's disappointment at the Washington Open, where he fell to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in straight sets (2-6, 5-7) in the semi-finals, Ben Shelton will have been glad for a routine victory in his next match, a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Adrian Mannarino in the Canadian Open second round on Wednesday.

Ten of the American's last 11 wins, including his most recent four, have been in straight sets, and next up, in Toronto, he faces an opponent, Brandon Nakashima, whom he boasts a 4-0 record against without dropping a set.

All four matches have been played within the last 18 months, the first a 7-5, 7-6 triumph at the US Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston in April 2024, and the second a 7-6, 7-6 win at the Washington Open in August of last year.

Shelton and Nakashima have met twice in 2025, with Shelton taking the first match, at the Australian Open in January, 7-6, 7-5, 7-5, before a 7-6, 6-1 success at the Indian Wells Open in March.

As you can see, Shelton has been pushed to win seven games in all but one of his sets against Nakashima; nevertheless, he has gotten the job done on every occasion, and that gives him a big mental edge over his opponent in Toronto this week.

We could well see a couple of long sets between these two, but ultimately, it's Shelton who I'm backing to come out on top 2-0 again.

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