My feeling was that Stefanos Tsitsipas would win, but the handicap mark looked right on the money and it turned out he would have failed to cover by a single game.
It was a good week for Alejandro Davidovich Fokina even though he came up short, and both players will be heading into the rest of the clay court season feeling pretty good about what they can achieve. This is a time on the Tour when the big tournaments are played frequently on the run up to the French Open and a huge number of top names are playing on both the ATP and WTA Tours this week.
The WTA Tour returns after a short break where the Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers were played, but there is a big event in Stuttgart this week before the Madrid Masters. For some reason the two Tours are not playing at the same time in Madrid this year with the ATP Tour heading there in early May, but the tournaments in Barcelona and Belgrade have plenty of big names attached to them this week.
Monday is usually one of the quieter days for main Tour tennis matches being scheduled, but a busy day in Barcelona is set to take place.
My Tennis Picks are going to be restricted to a single selection on Monday with more to come as the tournaments heat up this week.
I will also update the season totals for the Tennis Picks in the Tennis Picks thread on April 19th.
Lorenzo Musetti v Sebastian Baez: Two young players meet in the First Round of the tournament in Barcelona and they are both very comfortable on the clay courts which makes for a fascinating match.
Lorenzo Musetti has had a couple of good runs in Marrakech and Monte Carlo, but the feeling is that he will still be a little disappointed that those tournaments were not even stronger for him. Losses to Laslo Djere and Diego Sebastian Schwartzman are not so bad on paper, while the performances in his returning game will offer plenty of encouragement for Lorenzo Musetti.
The 44% of points won on the return are a significant improvement on his numbers on the clay courts in previous seasons so the question is whether Lorenzo Musetti can maintain his level of 2022. You do have to believe that the Italian has an improvement in him at just 20 years old, while the serve is another shot that is likely to improve in the next few years.
He is going into this match as the lower Ranked player as Sebastian Baez has used his performances to reach a peak career World Ranking of Number 60 last month. The Argentinian has played a lot more clay court tennis compared with Lorenzo Musetti this season, but Sebastian Baez has been a little weaker both in terms of his serve and his return.
Sebastian Baez has won plenty of clay court matches over the last fifteen months and that will make him very dangerous having the confidence of knowing what to do on the surface. However, a lot of the successes have been against players lower down the World Rankings.
In saying that, Sebastian Baez does have a 10-4 record against top 100 Ranked opponents on the clay courts over the last twelve months. Despite that, Baez has not been as strong returning against those higher Ranked opponents compared with the majority of opponents he has faced, and I do think Lorenzo Musetti could use his serve to make the slight difference to hand him the edge in this First Round match.
There would be no surprise if this match needs a third set to decide the winner, but I do think Lorenzo Musetti could earn revenge for losing in the Next Gen Finals to Sebastian Baez back in November. The clay courts are a surface that both will be happy to be playing on and I think the fans will enjoy the tennis that both of these young players will produce, but I am going to back Lorenzo Musetti to continue returning at a level that sees him win this match.
MY PICKS: Lorenzo Musetti @ 1.90 Bet365 (2 Units)
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