Nicolas Jarry vs Yannick Hanfmann

Time: 7:00 PM IST

Head-to-head: 2-0 

Nicolas Jarry has had a disappointing start to his clay season despite entering with high expectations. In four matches, he has only managed to win a total of three, suffering losses to Andrea Vavassori and Roman Safiullin in the first round of ATP Marrakech and Madrid Masters, respectively, both in three sets.

Compared to his performances during the South American clay swing earlier this year, the top-ranked Chilean’s recent results on clay have been underwhelming. In the semifinals of Rio de Janeiro, he showed his potential by taking a set off the in-form Carlos Alcaraz, and he followed that up with a second ATP title in his career in Santiago just a few days later.

While Yannick Hanfmann may not have had a standout result like his opponent Nicolas Jarry, the German has been playing consistently well, especially on clay. He reached the quarterfinals or better in both Santiago and Houston tournaments (QF and SF) and recently impressed at Madrid Masters, where he won four consecutive matches as a qualifier to reach the third round.

Yannick’s consistent performances across various levels in 2023 have resulted in a significant improvement in his ATP ranking, climbing more than 20 spots since the start of the year. As a result, he is now close to breaking back into the top 100, which he has not achieved since July 2021.

As a debutant in the Rome Masters, Yannick has won both of his opening-round matches in Masters level tournaments so far. Two years ago, he defeated Steve Johnson in Miami and Juan Pablo Varillas in Madrid just a couple of weeks ago.

With both players having met twice before, that too on clay, and Jarry winning both their previous encounters, we expect the trend to continue.

Prediction: Back Jarry to win