Rome Masters Tips: Mannarino can end losing streak on clay

Rome Masters Day Two Tips: Mannarino can end losing streak on clay

There's another big tournament on the ATP Tour this week at the Rome Masters and our tennis betting expert Dan Weston previews day two...

13 matches ahead on day two in Rome

On a low-profile day one, there were wins for Felix Auger-Aliassime, Pablo Carreno-Busta, Reilly Opelka and David Goffin in Rome as the tournament got underway.

There are 13 more first round clashes on day two on the ATP schedule today.

Action gets underway at 09:00 UK time and, despite the big names being seeded and receiving a first round bye, there are plenty of talented 'next tier' players on court today.

Sinner and Musetti favourites to progress in home country

Italian teenager Jannik Sinner is the best player in action today according to my numbers. The market agrees, with Sinner priced at just 1.20 to get the better of Ugo Humbert.

Lorenzo Musetti is another huge prospect from Italy who is very strong on clay, and he's also a market favourite despite being against higher-ranked opposition in Hubert Hurkacz. The wild card, Musetti, is running at around 103% combined service/return points won on clay in the last 12 months, and despite winning the Miami Masters just over a month ago on hard court, there's not an abundance of evidence to suggest that the Pole is an above-average clay-courter - as shown with recent losses to Dan Evans and John Millman when priced as a pre-match favourite in both matches.

Musetti is priced at 1.72 currently on the Exchange, and this looks very slight value although nothing particularly huge, especially in round one.

Mannarino could finally end his losing streak on clay

This is a common theme today, with there being no outstanding value spots. Despite being an extremely mediocre clay-courter at this level, Adrian Mannarino possibly looks big-priced at 3.20 for his meeting with the Bolivian qualifier, Hugo Dellien.

We have to go back to May 2019 - almost two years ago - in the first round of the French Open to find Mannarino's last clay victory, which was a five-set epic lasting close to four hours against Stefano Travaglia, but the Frenchman will not have many better opportunities in a big tournament to end that seven-match losing streak on the surface than Dellien today.

Karatsev's level still difficult to predict

From a neutral's perspective, the most fascinating clash looks like being Miomir Kecmanovic against Aslan Karatsev. I've discussed Karatsev at length in recent weeks in this column, and I'm still not entirely sure about the direction which his career will take for the remainder of the year.

Saying that, he looks about right at 1.35 based on the data which I do have against a young player in Kecmanovic who looks more comfortable on hard courts but is showing a little improvement on clay this year.

Kecmanovic's most recent four losses on clay this year have come against Novak Djokovic, Diego Schwartzman, Fabio Fognini and John Isner, so when he's lost, it's been against strong opposition, and it will be interesting to see how this match develops and how competitive Kecmanovic can be against this year's breakthrough player of the ATP Tour in Karatsev.