Juan Manuel Cerundolo vs Jelle Sels Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Italian Open

Prediction published on 08/05/2023, 07:15  by Devesh Jaganath in Tennis Predictions

The ATP Rome qualifiers are set to get underway this week, and in our featured match, we will see Juan Manuel Cerundolo take on Jelle Sels on Monday afternoon. Cerundolo will come into this tournament relatively confident after a solid run in the Oeiras 3 Challenger event last month. In that tournament,  Cerundolo pulled off a couple of notable upsets, including wins over Kaichi Uchida and Pedro Sousa en route to the final, where he came up short against the eventual winner Zsombor Piros. Cerundolo was unable to follow up in Madrid a week later by failing to get past the qualifiers and suffered a first-round exit at the Prague Challenger event ahead of this one. Cerundolo has seen his world ranking improve from 123rd to 104th and is carrying a record of 23-12 into this tournament, all on clay. The Argentine has never taken on this opponent but will be confident that he can get a result over an opponent that has been struggling on the clay surface this year.

Sels has struggled notably since returning to the fray this year and has seen his world ranking tank from 129th at the start of the year to 171st at present. The Dutchman has failed to put a meaningful run of results together this season and has only made it past the first round of any tournament twice to date, which came at the Roseto Degli Abruzzi and Rome Challenger events last month. Sels’ record for the year is poor, currently 2-6 overall and 2-4 on the clay. He comes into this match following a first-round defeat last week in Prague and will likely find it difficult again here against an opponent that enjoys this surface.