Top 3 bets for Friday's football, tennis & rugby

Is there any Friday night football?

The spotlight falls on the Championship tonight as QPR take on Nottingham Forest. The Hoops will move into the playoff positions with a win or draw tonight, but Forest have looked a different proposition under new boss Steve Cooper, and despite their terrible start, will jump up to within a point of their opponents with an away win. Forest lost 4-0 at home to Fulham last time out, having won four and drawn one of Cooper’s games in charge before that. They started the season with just one point in seven games under Chris Hughton. QPR are coming off a couple of heart-breaking results themselves, losing in injury time to Peterborough last weekend and being knocked out of the EFL Cup by Sunderland in midweek.

Total Goal Minutes 137-147

QPR have scored in all 14 of their League games this season, and while Forest have certainly improved since the new manager came in, but they are still shipping plenty of goals. They’ve kept just one clean sheet in Cooper’s six games. The fact they’ve won four of those shows there’s been plenty of goals in Forest’s games of late, and possibly explains why we’ve seen buying in various goals markets, including Total Goal Minutes.

Is Emma Raducanu playing again today?

The US Open champ is into the quarter-finals of the Transylvania Open and is due on court against Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk around 6pm tonight. Raducanu impressed in her 2^nd round game with Ana Bogdan, beating the home player in straight sets 6-3 6-4. With her Romanian father watching, and endearing herself to the locals by doing interviews in Romanian as well as English, Raducanu is rediscovering the form that saw her triumph at Flushing Meadows.

X-Courts 47-52

Kostyuk has been in decent form herself, winning 6-4 6-4 against Mona Barthel yesterday and 6-4 6-3 versus Bernarda Pera in the 1^st round, and this could be a close match. The X-Courts market multiplies the games won by each player in a set together, then aggregates the set totals. So in Raducanu’s match yesterday the make-up would have been 42, the 6-3 6-4 result giving a X-Courts make up of (6x3) + (6x4), which is 18+24, 42. The buyers we’ve seen in this market will be hoping this is a close match, preferably going to three sets.

Is there a Gallagher Premiership rugby match tonight?

Improving Gloucester face an inconsistent Exeter side in the Premiership tonight in a game that will see both sides having to adapt without their England players. The hosts are up to 5^th in the table after a run of four games unbeaten, but Exeter, last season’s beaten Premiership finalists, have lost three of their six games so far this season, and just don’t seem to be able to find the consistency they’re shown over the past few years. Gloucester make five changes, including having to replace England’s Jonny May and Mark Atkinson, while Exeter have made seven changes, including the loss of England stars Henry Slade, Sam Simmonds and Jonny Hill.

Match Multi-Points 564-611

This market multiplies first half total points by second, and buyers will be hoping for plenty of tries being scored and not much defence being played. That does look like a possibility tonight, but with so many changes in each team, and without their England stars, will those coming in need some time to bed in?