Berrettini – Ruud

Matteo Berrettini and Casper Ruud will square off on Wednesday in the second round at Roland Garros.

The 23 year old Berrettini has affirmed himself as one of the premier clay court players on the tour over the past year or so. He won his first ATP title last year in Gstaad, and this season he has been exceptional so far on clay. In the last month Berrettini won the Budapest title, reached the final in Munich, and the third round in Rome. He defeated players like Bautista Agut, Kohlschreiber, Pouille or Alex Zverev! Another solid win was his first round victory over Andujar here in Paris (6-7 6-4 6-4 6-2), considering Andujar himself has been in tremendous form this Spring.

Ruud is having a very good year so far, riding his best ever start of the season on the ATP Tour. Ruud had great success 2-3 months ago on the American clay court swing, reaching a quarterfinal (Rio), a semifinal (Sao Paolo) and a final (Houston). In the past month during the European clay court season his best performance was a third round in Rome (passed qualies, benefited from an injured Kyrgios in the second round). Here in Paris he defeated Gulbis 6-2 7-6 6-0 in the opening round.

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This will be the first H2H meeting between the two players. Both are clay court experts, so the surface doesn`t give any player a particular advantage over the other.

Both guys have been in very good form this year on clay, but you have to feel that Berrettini has been better, and is simply the better overall player.

While Ruud had some very good runs deep into tournaments, Berrettini had even better results and actually fought neck and neck with (and often defeated) some of the top players in the World. That can not be said for Ruud, who almost exclusively defeated journeymen in all his runs this year. Ruud has 4 wins as underdog in 24 clay court matches this season (never above 2.25 in odds), which suggests that maybe his results were also facilitated by weak competition during the American clay court swing.

Even here in the first round in Paris Berrettini was the more impressive player. After losing the first set, he completely neutralized Andujar in the next three, and Andujar has been devastating on clay this year, winning 13 of his last 15 matches (albeit many at challenger level). Ruud on the other hand met Gulbis, who has been an ebarassement this season (lost 12 of his last 13 matches) and didn`t even try after going down 0-2 in sets.

Ruud has the game and the form to make Berrettini work a bit in this match, but the Italian is at another level right now. He`s playing great and it feels like it would take a special performance from a top player to beat him in this tournament, maybe Federer in the next round. My tip will be Berrettini to win. Prediction: Matteo Berrettini – Casper Ruud 6-4 6-7 6-4 6-3.

Pick: Berrettini
Odds: 1.49 @ Unibet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 3.92
Event date: 29 May