Andy Schooler has made a decent start to the Rome Masters – here is his preview of round three in the Eternal City.
Tennis betting tips: Rome Masters round three
1pt Nikoloz Basilashvili to beat Brandon Nakashima at 6/4 (Betfred)
0.5pt Tommy Paul to beat Luciano Darderi at 4/5 (BOYLE Sports)
Brandon Nakashima v Nikoloz Basilashvili (Mon)
Basilashvili picked up his best win for some time on Saturday when he defeated top-10 star Ben Shelton.
That match delivered us a handicap winner – it’s just a shame I didn’t pull the trigger on the victory!
Still, I think there’s another opportunity to do just that in this round.
While my view that Nakashima might struggle against Roberto Bautista Agut proved a poor one, I still don’t think this is the surface for the American.
And it’s certainly worth recalling the only previous time these two have met. It came only last season on the clay of the Bordeaux Challenger where Basilashvili claimed victory.
In that one, the Georgian won 79% of points behind his first serve, 71% behind his second and was broken only once.
Such numbers help highlight Nakashima’s relatively poor return game and, in the rallies, I feel the experienced Basilashvili is the more comfortable in terms of movement on a claycourt.
I mentioned the other day how Basilashvili has long been regarded as a ‘streaky’ player, who enjoys some great weeks every now and then, and so I would not be surprised to see him back up his excellent victory over Shelton here at tasty odds of 6/4.
Tommy Paul v Luciano Darderi (Sun)
There are a number of interesting head-to-heads associated with the third-round matches in Rome.
Andrey Rublev leads Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-1 and is only a marginal favourite but the Russian has let me down too often in recent times.
Then there’s Martin Landaluce, 3-0 up on home hope Mattia Bellucci, although the problem there is they have yet to play on clay.
The previous meetings in Paul v Darderi are also notable with the American 2-0 up, both matches being settled in straight sets.
One of those came on clay, at the Paris Olympics of 2024.
Paul, a semi-finalist in Rome in each of the past two years, started his 2026 campaign well with a comfortable victory over Aleksandar Vukic the other day when he largely dominated behind his serve.
He has the bigger weapons here and while clay isn’t his natural surface, it’s one on which he’s played well in the past, as highlighted here at the Foro Italico.
I think 4/5 is a price worthy of consideration, although my outright support for Paul (to win his quarter) means we already have an interest here.
I’ll therefore take something of a safety-first approach and back Paul to minimum stakes to win this contest.
Posted at 07:45 BST on 10/05/26
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