{"id":104218,"date":"2026-05-05T12:09:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=104218"},"modified":"2026-05-05T12:09:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:09:41","slug":"best-matches-atp-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/05\/05\/best-matches-atp-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Five Round 1 ATP Matches in Rome Including Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Tomas Machac"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest storylines in the ATP right now are the injuries running rampant at the top of the game. But as far as first-round matches at Masters 1000s are concerned, that issue doesn\u2019t factor in. The quality of play to open the ATP Rome Masters is the same as ever, and here are the five matches poised to stand out:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Alexei Popyrin vs Matteo Berrettini<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Home favorite Matteo Berrettini has a tough test in his first-round match in the form of Alexei Popyrin. Both of these players have had extremely high highs in their careers, but have also been through some low lows. By ranking Popyrin is the favorite, but Berrettini is far more comfortable on clay and he has the home-crowd advantage. The fans in Rome urging him on could be the spark Berrettini needs to find his typical clay-court form, but if he doesn\u2019t manage to get to the level he\u2019s reached in the past then this match could be very close. Whoever wins will face 26th seed Jakub Mensik in the second round.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Marcos Giron vs Marin Cilic<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tour veteran Marin Cilic has been holding on by a great serve, but he has been able to back it up at times this season. He was sidelined by food poisoning in Madrid, but not before he notched a quality win over Zizou Bergs in the first round. Marcos Giron hasn\u2019t quite had the best results this clay season, but Giron can expose Cilic\u2019s movement with his own speed. This match could be somewhat serve-dominated, a less common occurrence on clay, and if Giron can\u2019t wear Cilic down then Cilic could certainly get the win. The winner of this match takes on 14th seed Valentin Vacherot in the second round.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

3. Zizou Bergs vs Terence Atmane<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Terence Atmane has found himself in more than a few dramatic matches this season, and the trend could very well continue against Zizou Bergs. Atmane has been playing great tennis and has fallen just short of a few upset wins in recent tournaments. Bergs has more momentum coming into Rome, having just made the final of a Challenger the week prior. If Atmane brings his best tennis, though, then Bergs will have to raise his level. Bergs is rising in the rankings but hasn\u2019t managed a deep main-draw run this season, and if he wants to rise further he\u2019ll need bigger results to back it up. Atmane is an up-and-down player, so the key for Bergs is to stay consistent throughout the match. Whoever comes out on top will be up against 10th seed Flavio Cobolli in the second round.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4. Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Tomas Machac<\/strong><\/h4>\n

If Tomas Machac\u2019s backhand is at its full strength, then Stefanos Tsitsipas will have a difficult time getting through this first-round match. Tsitsipas had a solid run in Madrid<\/a> after a largely poor showing in the rest of the season<\/a>, nearly defeating defending champion Casper Ruud, but the matchup against Machac exposes his greatest weakness. The Tsitsipas backhand is an easy target, and when Machac is at his best he just may have one of the best backhands in the world. And Machac has been playing well lately, with a recent highlight being his snapping of Jannik Sinner\u2019s Masters 1000 set streak. Tsitsipas has always been comfortable on clay–he did reach a final at the French Open<\/a>–but it will take his Madrid level and then some to get past Machac. The winner will slot into a second-round matchup against seventh seed Daniil Medvedev.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Alexandre Muller vs Botic van de Zandschulp<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Botic van de Zandschulp is one of the most unpredictable players on the ATP Tour<\/a>, and that could lead to any sort of first-round clash. His opponent, Alexandre Muller, has struggled to stay healthy this season but has shown in the past that he is capable of top-level tennis. With two question mark players facing off, the match is anyone\u2019s for the taking. Both players have had good results on clay before, but neither is anywhere close to being a specialist. This match will be a challenge for either of them to get through, and it\u2019s hard to predict which one will make it to the second round. Whoever manages to do it will play their next match against 22nd seed Arthur Rinderknech.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest storylines in the ATP right now are the injuries running rampant at the top of the game. But as far as first-round matches at Masters 1000s are concerned, that issue doesn\u2019t factor in. The quality of play to open the ATP Rome Masters is the same as ever, and here are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5769,"featured_media":84327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9],"tags":[13556,3970,10566,9553,498,15670,2887,18805,6915,50,1694,304,41540,11064,18095,12932],"class_list":["post-104218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-alexandre-muller","tag-alexei-popyrin","tag-arthur-rinderknech","tag-botic-van-de-zandschulp","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-flavio-cobolli","tag-internazionali-bnl-ditalia","tag-jakub-mensik","tag-marcos-giron","tag-marin-cilic","tag-matteo-berrettini","tag-stefanos-tsitsipas","tag-terence-atmane","tag-tomas-machac","tag-valentin-vacherot","tag-zizou-bergs"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104229,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104218\/revisions\/104229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}