Andy Schooler has landed a profit in both rounds of the Rome Masters so far – check out his third-round picks.
Tennis betting tips: Rome Masters
1.5pts Arthur Fils to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas at 4/5 (William Hill, 888sport)
1pt Marcos Giron to beat Hubert Hurkacz at 7/4 (betway)
Arthur Fils v Stefanos Tsitsipas (Sun)
These are two players going in opposite directions in the ranking list at the moment with Fils now five places higher.
Since hitting the clay, he’s beaten Andrey Rublev en route to the last eight in Monte Carlo where he then took a set off eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz.
Fils also made the Barcelona semis (again, Alcaraz stopped him) so he’s got plenty of wins under his belt already on this surface.
This is usually Tsitsipas’ best time of the season but he’s failed to hit the heights of the past.
A quarter-final run in Monte Carlo wasn’t bad but neither was it great given he’s a three-time champion there, while when he moved onto Barcelona, the Greek suffered an injury – against Fils.
That ‘win’ took Fils’ record against Tsitsipas to 3-0 with the more experienced player yet to win a set.
The Frenchman played well in his opener, restricting Tallon Griekspoor to only four games, and I reckon his power will be able to punch holes in that Tsitsipas defence. It’s almost become a cliché, but the backhand will be targeted, no doubt.
Fils has been backed in since the market opened but at 4/5, I feel he’s still worthy of support.
Marcos Giron v Hubert Hurkacz (Mon)
Of the underdogs in the last 16, Giron’s 7/4 price stands out.
He was a winner for us in round one when beating Gabriel Diallo and he backed that up on Saturday with an impressive straight-sets victory over fourth seed Taylor Fritz.
Those matches should be good preparation for this one, too. Hurkacz is another player who aims to do a lot of damage on his first serve, either with service winners or setting up the serve +1 shot.
To be fair, the Pole did that pretty well in his opening victory over Pedro Martinez, when he faced only one break point.
But his game is less suited to the claycourts and I’m far from convinced he’ll have similar success against a player in good form and one who has already held off the serving barrage from Fritz and Diallo.
Hurkacz’s season has been disrupted by a back issue and he’s not long returned from an injury break.
This will be only his third claycourt match of the season, during which he’s gone only 8-8. Four of the last six have been lost.
Admittedly, the Pole is 3-0 up on the head-to-head but none of those matches has taken place on clay. Two straight-sets wins on grass mean little in Rome and I like the fact Giron only went down 6-4 in the third when they met on a hardcourt – Hurkacz’s preferred surface - in Tokyo last autumn.
In short, I feel the American has a better chance than odds of 7/4 suggest and I will back him accordingly.
Posted at 2145 BST on 10/05/25
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