Tennis best bets for the Italian Open – Monday, May 15th
The Italian Open, also known as Internazionali BNL d’Italia, is a 1000-level clay-court tournament for both the men and the women. This is one of the most exciting tournaments of the entire year, and we’ll have best bets for it on a daily basis. With that in mind, keep reading for our tennis best bets for Monday, May 15th. Also, make sure you actively check out our Pro Picks page, as we have been posting plays there regularly throughout the year. We ended up having a very profitable two weeks in Madrid, with a lot of the winners being posted to that page. And this tournament has already been very kind go to us, and we actually had a 1.5-unit underdog hit at +170 odds on the Pro Picks page on Sunday.
MORE: Check out our Pro Picks page for everything our experts have
Lorenzo Musetti vs. Frances Tiafoe
It’s never easy betting against a guy that competes like Tiafoe. The American is never out of a match and is one of the few players on the ATP Tour that truly rises to the occasion under the brightest of lights. However, it’s still hard not to back Musetti in this match. Tiafoe is no slouch when it comes to clay, but his career winning percentage on the dirt is 45.0%. Meanwhile, Musetti is 39-25 for a winning percentage of 60.9% in clay-court matches at the ATP level. This is Musetti’s best surface by a wide margin, and he just has a bit of a better understanding of how to get the job done in grittier conditions.
On top of that, Musetti is an Italian and will have the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand in this one. So, he should get a bit of an adrenaline rush from the fans here, and that could also get under Tiafoe’s skin. The American is used to being a fan favorite pretty much everywhere. With all of that in mind, we’re taking Musetti to win this match, but we’re doing so as the first leg of a parlay.
Marketa Vondrousova vs. Elena Rybakina
The second leg of our parlay for Monday calls for Vondrousova to beat Rybakina. We had the Czech to beat Maria Sakkari in her last match, and she ended up earning a 7-5, 6-3 win in that one. Now, we like Vondrousova to go out and beat one of the best players in the world.
Vondrousova might be the 70th-ranked player in the women’s game right now, but she’s a lot more talented than that number suggests. In fact, Vondrousova was once the 14th-ranked player in the world, and it isn’t hard to envision her as a top-10 player in the future. She has a very complete game and has been taking it to some of the top players in the world this season.
The reason to really love Vondrousova in this match is that she’s 40-20 in WTA-level clay-court matches in her career. For as good as Rybakina is, the Kazakhstani is definitely at her best on the other two surfaces. And taking things a step further than that, it’s just hard to see Vondrousova losing with the way she’s serving right now. She has now made 75.9% of her first serves in back-to-back matches. It’s very hard to lose when you’re in that kind of groove.
We could have taken Musetti and Vondrousova as straights, but the two of them were a little too pricey to back as moneyline favorites. But when you throw them into a parlay, you’re getting them at plus-money odds, and we genuinely love them both to win.
Parlay: Musetti ML + Vondrousova ML (+140)