Bernabe Zapata Miralles vs Andrey Rublev Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Hamburg European Open

Prediction published on 25/07/2023, 09:06  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 25/07/2023 at 23:55 in Tennis Predictions

Second seed Andrey Rublev begins his bid to win back-to-back ATP Tour titles. He takes on unseeded Bernabe Zapate Miralles in the first round of this clay court European Open in Hamburg. The winner will face unseeded Daniel Altmaier in round two of this European Open in Hamburg. Last week saw Rublev beat Casper Ruud in the final of the Swedish Open. Ruud is the top seed in Hamburg so we could see a repeat of that final on Sunday. The Russian began this tournament ranked but winning the title could take him as high as fourth and that'd be a new career high. He's already in that position in the Live ATP Race but can't go any higher this week. The 25-year-old only dropped one set when winning the Swedish Open and is bidding to win his third clay court title of 2023. Rublev has had time to get over Sunday's final so should be firing on all cylinders here.

Bernabe Zapate Miralles is 54th in the latest world ranking list. The Spaniard has a career high of 37th and that was achieved in May of this year. He was also in the Swedish Open but lost in the last 16 to Sebastian Offner despite winning the first set. Before that clay court tournament, he reached the final of a Challenger Tour event held in Romania. He lost to Hugo Gaston (ranked 137th at the time) and also gave away a set lead in that match. That followed a rather unsuccessful grass court season in which he lost all three of the matches he played. He's more at home on clay but that bad habit of his was even worse at Roland Garros. He led Diego Schwartzman 2-0 in the first round and still ended up losing. Miralles can't afford to do anything like that against an in-form Rublev. Earlier this year he reached two clay court semi-finals in South America but doesn't look to be in that kind of form at present. We go for Rublev to win this in straight sets.