Daily Tennis Tips – Wednesday March 19

See below for our daily tennis tips and best bets around the courts for Wednesday March 19 at the ATP and WTA Miami tournaments, including the top tips and players to back in our tennis betting markets!

Top-50 rivals Katie Boulter and Peyton Stearns square off in the first round of the Miami Masters. Stearns is 2-0 against Boulter, winning matches at the ATX Open and US Open in 2023.

Boulter has slipped from a top-25 ranking at the start of the year, sidelined after the Australian Open until the Indian Wells Masters, where she beat Irina-Camelia Begu in three sets before going down 6-0 7-5 to big gun Elena Rybakina.

Stearns is aiming to recover the form that saw her beat Ons Jabeur and Qinwen Zheng at the Dubai Championships.

The 23-year-old is 0-3 since, losing to Mirra Andreeva, Varvara Garcheva and, last week at Indian Wells, Magda Linette.

Boulter reached the fourth round here last year, her best result at WTA 1000 level.

Stearns is yet to make it past the second round at a Sunshine Double tournament, but she was a Canadian Masters quarter-finalist in August.

The pair are dead even in the head-to-head stakes, but crowd favourite Stearns shapes as the more enticing option here with Boulter playing just two matches in two months.

Aussie veteran Ajla Tomljanovic is a narrow favourite to get past Croatian-American Bernarda Pera in the first round of the Miami Masters.

Tomljanovic is coming off a first-round loss to Catherine McNally at Indian Wells, retiring after losing the first set. That setback stunted the momentum she’d built from an ATX semi-final run earlier this month.

World No.84 Pera had to battle through qualifiers against Marina Stakusic and Robin Montgomery to make the main draw here. She is on a five-match main draw losing streak, including a 6-3 6-4 defeat to Caroline Garcia at Indian Wells.

Pera’s sole win at the Miami Masters was on debut in 2018. Making her first appearance here since 2022, Tomljanovic has made it beyond the first round on four of her past five visits and reached the last 16 way back in 2013.

While fitness may be a concern after pulling the pin against McNally, Tomljanovic has been playing reasonably well and should find a way past Pera if her body holds up.

Aussie Jordan Thompson finds himself a $2.63 underdog against lower-ranked Marcos Giron in the first round of the Miami Masters.

Thompson won their only ATP-level encounter, at the 2022 Sydney International. Giron won a Challenger match back in 2014.

World No.37 Thompson has endured a truncated start to 2025. He lost to Nuno Borges in the second round of the Australian Open and has played just one match since, a three-set loss to Corentin Moutet at Indian Wells.

Giron, ranked 45th, is coming off a strong run at Indian Wells, getting to the last 16 with wins over Casper Ruud and Alexei Popyrin, before going down Arthur Fils in three.

It was the American’s best ATP 1000 result, while he’s looking to improve on a 1-4 Miami Masters record here.

Thompson made the fourth round here in 2019 but is 3-4 in Miami since. He can take some confidence from reaching the Indian Wells doubles final last week, but his lack of singles court time makes it hard to back the 30-year-old against in-form Giron.

Brazilian wunderkind Joao Fonesca and Australian Open bolter Learner Tien lock horns in the Miami Masters’ first round.

The teenagers met twice at last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals, with Fonesca taking both matches – including the tournament final – in four sets.

Fonesca has since won the Canberra Challenge, beaten Andrey Rublev at the Australian Open, won a maiden ATP title at the Argentina Open and beaten Jacob Fearnley in just his third ATP Masters match at Indian Wells (before losing to eventual champ Jack Draper) to climb to No.60.

The 18-year-old used last week to go and win a Challenger in Phoenix, beating the likes of Jan-Lennard Struff, Hugo Gasto, Kei Nishikori and Alexander Bublik.

World No.66 Tien was one of the stories of the Australian Open, reaching the fourth round as a qualifier with a stunning upset of Daniil Medvedev and a straight-sets win over Corentin Moutet.

Like Fonesca, he was halted in Melbourne by Lorenzo Sonego. Tien collected another massive scalp to reach the Mexican Open quarters, beating world No.2 Alexander Zverev in straight sets, but he was eliminated in the first round at Indian Wells by Mariano Navone on ATP 1000 debut.

While Tien’s giant-killing efforts are impossible to overlook, Fonesca’s consistency sees him installed as a worthy $1.33 favourite.