- Sean Calvert is in Italy for the Tennis Napoli Cup
- Carballes Baena beat Berrettini last week in Florence
- Sean is backing RCB to beat another big server in Jarry
It was an interesting opening day in Naples on Tuesday, with play finally starting, but it's been a week of pure farce and that continued when the night session was abandoned due to moisture from the sea making the court slippery.
The new GreenSet surface looked to me to be playing around medium paced and seemed okay from where I was sitting, but Albert Ramos was keen to point out some flaws in it during his loss to Nuno Borges.
We're still only playing on the one court in Naples, with the other courts here yet to be replaced, and it could be another day or two before there's any singles action here on any other court than the main one.
Wednesday's play features another six round one matches and opening up proceedings is yet another match between Roberto Carballes Baena and Nicolas Jarry.
This will be the eighth time that this pair have met, but the first away from clay, and I'm happy to back RCB here as very slight underdog.
You'd think that Jarry's big serve allied with RCB's tendency to struggle on hard courts would make Jarry a decent favourite, but the Spaniard has improved lately on hard and comes here having beaten Matteo Berettini on this very court (albeit indoors) last week.
Carballes Baena's recent form on clay has been very good, with a title at the Seville Challenger, but it's his hard court form that caught the eye lately for me.
A win over Jaume Munar and a four-set loss to Denis Shapovalov in New York, followed up by an easy win over Daniel Elahi Galan and Berrettini in Florence and then a loss to Mikael Ymer is decent and he won't fear Jarry at all.
If we look at the match up on clay, it's RCB that's held serve more often (83% compared to 80%) and won more service points (65% compared to 63%) and return points (37% compared to 35%).
And those stats include the match that RCB retired in after six games, plus two of the matches were played at altitude (one at extreme altitude in Quito) so conditions haven't always been slow by any means.
Jarry will get no help from having played qualies, having played his matches in Pozzuoli rather than in Naples, and I don't mind a small interest in RCB here at 2.01/1.
Then it's Sebastian Baez up against Lorenzo Sonego and this pair had weeks to forget last week, with Baez barely able to leave the court unaided after a knee injury and Sonego was really disappointing in Florence.
I saw both of these men hitting on the practice court on Tuesday and you would think that Sonego would have too much power for Baez on a hard court and considering that Baez may not be fully fit.
Given the way that Baez left the court in Gijon I'm a little surprised that he's playing this week and this looks a fair draw for Sonego if he's struggling with nerves as he seemed to be in Florence.
After that it's another man that's been a very regular presence on the practice courts this past three or four days and that's Marton Fucsovics, who let me down last week from a good position against Oscar Otte.
He's facing Zhizhen Zhang, who's qualified here (well, not here, in Pozzuoli) and while I'd expect Fucsovics to come through this I can't back him at 1.758/11 given his struggles with fitness and form lately.
It doesn't get any easier from a betting perspective after that, as we have to try to figure out what Fabio Fognini will do against Hugo Grenier.
It's a thankless task on any given day to second guess Fabio's mood and even more so now that he's in the twilight of his career at the age of 35.
Last time out in Gijon a week ago he retired against Manuel Guinard citing a "gut virus" and who's to say how well Fogna has recovered from that?
Allied to that, Fognini doesn't have the best record playing at home, with one quarter final (no further) in his career in Italy and this will actually be the first time he's played at home away from clay, plus he lost in the doubles yesterday with his pal Simone Bolelli.
Grenier has been in decent form in recent months and this one looks about as even as it's priced.
To start the evening session, there's another evenly matched encounter, with Laslo Djere and Borna Gojo proving hard for the layers to split.
Djere looks like he'll start as slight favourite and he's another one that I've seen a fair bit of on the practice courts this week.
The Serbian has shown improvement on hard lately and he should appreciate the timing of this match in the late afternoon in what you'd think would be slightly slower conditions than in the heat of the day.
Gojo has qualified and he's certainly capable of winning this match, but again it's not overly appealing to me as far as betting is concerned.
Finally on Wednesday in Naples, we have a very quick rematch of last week's Florence round two match between Mackenzie McDonald and Francesco Passaro.
McDonald had a little too much power for the Italian last week, with McDonald's first serve being the main difference between the pair, and having watched that match I'm not sure I can see Passaro turning it around.
It is the last match on though and it should be slower than Florence at that time, so it's possible, but not strong enough for me to get involved.
So, another tricky-looking day betting-wise and one it which I'll just have one half point bet in.