Rome Masters Day 2 Tips: Ramos can kickstart season with win against Passaro

• Cecchinato should enjoy home comforts against McDonald

• Schwartzman needing to improve on serve

• Ramos favoured to get back on track

Rain could throw rest of week into chaos

We move to the bottom half of the draw after a delayed start to proceedings on Wednesday due to rain, and there's more of that potentially in store for the players on Thursday, with a threat of thunderstorms as well. In fact, the forecast for most of the next week is dreadful, and we could be dealing with a backlog of matches as the days progress. Court speed could potentially slow given the weather too, which would help traditional clay-courters in theory.

Cecchinato favourite to defeat McDonald

There's plenty to discuss ahead of day two though, with a number of intriguing clashes on the schedule. Marco Cecchinato is in home territory for his clash with Mackenzie McDonald, and after an unimpressive start to 2023 - with injury issues as well - the Italian has picked up some wins in recent weeks, reaching the semi-final in Estoril (with three underdog wins) and also qualifying and making round two in Madrid, giving Alex De Minaur a decent match in that loss.

Cecchinato is inconsistent, there's little doubt about that, but he faces an opponent in Mackenzie McDonald who has lost his last five matches, and all four he's played on clay this season. Despite this, Cecchinato is only a fairly marginal 1.705/7 favourite at the time of writing. McDonald's record on clay in his career, and more recently, is unimpressive (one in three win ratio, for example) and if Cecchinato plays to a decent level, he should have too much.

Another player who reached the semi-final of Estoril is Quentin Halys, with the Frenchman losing - just - to top seed Casper Ruud in a final set tiebreak. Results since then have been pretty uninspiring, but all those have come in tight three setters against decent or high potential opposition.

Halys, whose serve numbers have improved hugely this year, is up against JJ Wolf, who has shown little liking for clay in his career. I'd be surprised if the American could overturn the odds here.

Schwartzman needing to overturn dreadful serve data

Continuing, it's a mark of how Diego Schwartzman has declined that he's a 2.506/4 underdog against wild-card Matteo Arnaldi, who is still yet to break into the top 100. It's easy to forget that Schwartzman was finalist here in 2020, and semi-finalist in 2019 (both losses against Novak Djokovic).

Arnaldi is in decent form of late, beating Casper Ruud in Madrid and winning the Murcia Challenger against weak opposition, so we have a fascinating clash between an improving young player versus a declining former top 10 opponent.

While the price on Schwartzman will attract some, a player who has held less than 60% this season on clay, as he has, is pretty much unbackable.

Ramos should benefit from opposition downgrade

Finally, Albert Ramos is another main tour stalwart who is seemingly in decline, and he's had a miserable run of results this season even on his preferred clay. Losses have come numerous times as pre-match favourite, but he could benefit from a drop in opposition quality on Thursday against Francesco Passaro.

Ramos is the marginal favourite at 1.9720/21, and I think he could represent some value at these lines. This year on clay, his win/loss record is poor, but his underlying data isn't that disastrous (99% combined service/return points won), and that sort of level should get the job done against a player still yet to dominate the Challenger Tour. It's certainly not a strong lean, but I'm with Ramos here.