Rome Open Men's Quarter-Final Tips: Nadal's exit the big talking point

Nadal's loss a big worry ahead of the French Open

It wasn't just the defeat of Nadal which raised eyebrows yesterday, it was the nature of it - a 6-2 final set loss to Denis Shapovalov where there looked to be injury concerns as well.

Nine days ahead of the start of the French Open, this will clearly have a big impact on people's considerations for the outright market in Paris over the next few weeks.

Zverev and Djokovic heavy favourites to continue progression

The other heavy favourites all progressed yesterday, mostly with relative ease, leaving just eight players remaining in the tournament and a couple of really fascinating clashes in particular on today's schedule. Despite this, all favourites are again pretty short-priced, with all being around the 1.501/2 mark or quite a bit below this in several cases.

Let's go to the heavy favourites first. Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic are both priced around 1.201/5 for their matches versus Christian Garin and Felix Auger-Aliassime, respectively, and based on 12 month clay numbers, those prices look pretty justified. Not much to argue with there, with the bigger names expected to progress.

Sinner v Tsitsipas a useful marker ahead of Paris

Second on today's card is Jannik Sinner versus Stefanos Tsitsipas, with the Greek man currently trading as the 1.538/15 favourite to make the semi-finals. While Sinner has a slight edge on return data - and that's the big concern over Tsitsipas ahead of the French Open - it's Tsitsipas who has won almost 7% more service points on clay in the last 12 months, to again justify his status as favourite here.

Having said that, Tsitsipas has dropped sets against opposition perceived to be worse than Sinner this week already, and was fortunate to get past Grigor Dimitrov in his opening match in particular, while Sinner hasn't been in quite as much difficulty this week. As with a few matches this week, it will be interesting to see where both players are at ahead of the French Open.

Ruud favourite to bring Shapovalov back down to earth

The final match on the schedule to discuss is Nadal's conqueror, Denis Shapovalov, versus Casper Ruud. The big question is whether Nadal was Shapovalov's 'cup final' and whether he will be able to maintain that level again here against a very strong clay-courter in Ruud.

Markets are sceptical, with Ruud the current 1.4840/85 favourite, having won well over 80% of his clay matches in the last 12 months. He has won around 3% more service and return points than Shapovalov on clay in that time period, so again, it's tough to argue that the market is out of line in any major way. Ruud starts as the justified favourite for this.

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