Andy Schooler’s match bets for the season are well in profit heading into the Madrid Open, which starts on Wednesday. Check out his picks for round one.
Tennis betting tips: Madrid Open matches
1.5pts Francisco Comesana to beat Pedro Martinez at 10/11 (General)
1pt over 0.5 tie-breaks in Lorenzo Sonego v Miomir Kecmanovic at 13/10 (Unibet, BetMGM, LiveScoreBet)
0.5pt over 12.5 games in first set of Sonego v Kecmanovic at 18/5 (Unibet, BetMGM, LiveScoreBet)
Francisco Comesana v Pedro Martinez
This is a pick ‘em affair, according to the layers, but my tissue has Comesana as the clear favourite.
I’ve been impressed by him on the clay this season and he appears to be following in the footsteps of Mariano Navone and Luciano Darderi. Those two broke through on the clay in 2024 and Comesana looks the man translating Challenger Tour form to main level this season.
He was a semi-finalist at the ATP 500 event in Rio and also performed admirably in defeat to Argentine compatriot Sebastian Baez at altitude in Santiago, only losing in a final-set tie-break.
The significance of that is that Madrid is some 700m above sea level so the balls will ‘fly’ that bit more through the air, making ball control key, so it’s always worth looking at players who have been able to handle such conditions in the past.
Comesana has since lost another three-setter to Baez – in the Bucharest quarter-finals – and overall his form is strong.
That can no longer be said about Martinez.
Since making the semis in Buenos Aires in February, he’s gone just 3-8 and a three-set clay win over a jaded Brandon Nakashima was nothing to write home about.
Back the form player at an excellent price.
Lorenzo Sonego v Miomir Kecmanovic
We’ve had some joy with tie-break bets in this column already this season and I’m going to back another here at a tasty price.
These two have a long history of serve-dominated matches. This will be their sixth and four of the previous five have featured a breaker. Three of them have seen the first set go the distance.
There have also been two 7-5 sets and three 6-4 scorelines.
Focus in on the serve/break stats and you can see why things have been so close.
Kecmanovic has held serve 89% of the time and Sonego 87% across their five-match series. In short, service breaks are hard to come by.
OK, this match is on clay which should, in theory, aid the returner somewhat.
However, that previously mentioned altitude will give the servers that bit extra to work with and I suspect there will be few breaks of serve again in this contest.
Let’s back any tie-break at odds-against with a smaller bet on one occurring in the opening set at 18/5.
Posted at 1450 BST on 22/04/25
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