The consistent Gael Monfils lives! He could hardly have been more impressive in his win over Philipp Kohlschreiber, who had just beaten Novak Djokovic, and he is now my pick to win the entire tournament. Dominic Thiem is a player that is generally overrated by the betting market, especially when he isn’t playing on clay, and despite his excellent record against Monfils, I’m backing the Frenchmen to cruise to a straight sets victory. 

Karen Khachanov is a player that I believe has the ability to develop into a top five player and I think that he is over the odds to upset Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells. He has never previously beaten Nadal, but he did take a set off him at the US Open last year and he comes into this clash on the back of a pair of impressive wins over Andrey Rublev and John Isner. He can play at a very-high level on his day and an upset win over Nadal is not out of his range. 

How can you take an athlete seriously when his name is Hubert Hurkacz? To be fair to Hurkacz, he has recorded impressive wins over Lucas Pouille, Kei Nishikori and Denis Shapovalov, but none of them are Roger Federer. Federer has been in scintillating form at Indian Wells and the $26 available for him to upstage Hurkacz is well and truly worth a bet.