ATP Rome Outright Preview

If you don’t like chalky tournaments and unsurprising trophy ceremonies than the Rome Masters event may not be for you. Since I started watching tennis in the mid-80’s this tournament has been won by an outsider maybe three times. In 1989 Albert Mancini won, upsetting Agassi in the final. Emilio Sanchez won in 1989 when the top seed withdrew after the draw and every top 5 player lost in the first round. Lastly, in 2003 Felix Mantila had the tournament of his life, upsetting David Nalbandian, 7th seed Alberto Costo, Ivan Ljubicic, and finally Roger Federer in the final.
Other than those three events it’s basically been top seeds throughout. Since Nadal’s arrival in 2005 there has only been FOUR winners in sixteen years - Nadal’s won 9 times, Djokovic has won 5 times and Andy Murray and Alex Zverev both snuck in a title. There is very little chance we will see a long shot winner this week.

Let’s check out the field and see what colour of sidewalk chalk is the best bet this week.

Everything on clay starts with Nadal. Last year and 2015 are the two years in his career when he has failed to win one of the three clay Masters events that precede Roland Garros. He could win this event, surely. He’s won in nine times in sixteen years. For all his lack of titles in 2021, he still won Barcelona and his three losses have all come to the upper-echelon of NextGen starts (Rublev, Zverev, Tsitsipas). The worry, of course, is that he was kind of dismantled in all three of those loses. A worrying sign. His quarter doesn’t look unbeatable but, Zverev looms again plus, Sinner and Fognini who, on their day, could probably give him some trouble. The price seems too low, again, for me to get invested. The upside is, the third quarter looks wide open and I think whoever comes out of the fourth quarter probably makes the final pretty comfortably.

Djokovic has a much harder potential path than Nadal. However, the top half of his quarter looks like a cakewalk. You’d have to assume Berrettini vs Tsitsipas will be a war, which only helps Djokovic and there is a distinct possibility Thiem is not 100%. If Rublev is the third quarter winner, Djoker should get a tired opponent in the quarters and someone he can handle pretty easily in the semis. I don’t relish a Djoker-Nadal final but, the one year Djoker had Nadal’s number on clay was 2015 (he beat him in Monte Carlo, won Rome, beat him again at Roland Garros) and we’ve already drawn some parallels between 2015 and 2021 for Nadal.

Tsitsipas’ potential path is Berrettini, Djokovic, Thiem/Rublev, Nadal. If you really like him, and there isn’t much reason not too, then I suggest a moneyline rollover. He is arguably the most in-form player on tour with only an early exit in Marseille and last week in Madrid as his only bad outings (he has two semis and three finals so far). And you could surmise the early exit in Madrid is actually good for him this week.

I don’t think Thiem is healthy. He looked really good coming back from an injury early in the week in Madrid. However, if you watched that match against Zverev he had hand issues and possibly more. I would suggest he pull out and rest up for Paris.

I think Rublev has the stats and the form to take the second quarter. All he has to do is avoid tiebreaks. I hestitate to take him further though because, other than beating Federer in their first and only meeting, his initial meetings with top tier players does not go well (Nadal, Tsitsipas, Thiem, Meds, Khachanov, Zverev). I fear Djokovic will be able to dismantle his serve and absorb his power. And Rublev has yet to show the ability to change his game plan.

Medvedev showed last week he still has a love/hate relationship with clay. I think the person who can benefit from that is Aslan Karatsev. Assuming he gets by Kecmanovic in round one, he’ll have a match under in his belt in the slower conditions in Rome and those conditions should only benefit him in a match-up with Meds, who prefers the faster surfaces (Medvedev has never won a match here).

Zverev certainly looked in amazing form in Madrid. And he has won here before. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shown the ability to back up great performances this year - a quarter-final in Melbourne was followed by a first round exit in Rotterdam; a win in Acapulco was followed by a first round exit in Miami. He is in Nadal’s quarter and it is hard to imagine Nadal won’t be ready for a re-match.

Picks:
Djokovic outright, +300, Bet365
Rublev 2nd quarter, +240, Bet365
Karatsev 3rd quarter, +350, Bet365