{"id":104473,"date":"2026-05-07T20:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=104473"},"modified":"2026-05-07T20:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:43:14","slug":"wta-rome-best-bets-pegula-sonmez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/05\/07\/wta-rome-best-bets-pegula-sonmez\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Rome Best Bets Including Jessica Pegula vs Zeynep Sonmez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The WTA Rome tournament second round continues on Friday. The WTA is a very competitive tour right now. No one expected Marta Kostyuk to win Madrid. Will we see a completely unexpected champion in Rome? The French Open could be a lot more wide open than many people think. Will the coming days in Italy shake up the tour even more, or will we see the top players take command and remind everyone they are still the ones to beat in women\u2019s tennis? Heading into the weekend, it\u2019s time to see if chaos will continue to reign on the WTA Tour. LWOS has our best bets for three matches. Post your best bets and thoughts in the comments.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>WTA Rome<\/b><\/h2>\n<h4><b>Alexandrova \u2013 Siegemund: Time 8:00 EST<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><b>H2H: 3-1<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ekaterina Alexandrova has been dealing with lower-back problems. This is why she did not play in Madrid. Her most recent match was in Stuttgart nearly a full month ago. Laura Siegemund has not produced amazing results, but she has won a main-draw match in Stuttgart, Madrid, and Rome. She isn\u2019t a top-30 player, but she\u2019s a steady veteran who competes well and manages to succeed at a modest level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Best Bet to Make<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The reality of Alexandrova carrying a lower-back injury is hard to ignore in this match. We have come across a lot of injury situations in recent weeks. We tell you to be absolutely sure you can trust a player\u2019s fitness if you are going to bet on them. If a recent injury has occurred, there has to be a strong sense the injury was minor and the athlete has managed her situation if you are going to bet on that athlete to do well. We\u2019re not convinced Alexandrova is ready to play her best. Siegemund won as a moneyline underdog in the first round. We\u2019re going to trust her in this situation as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That being said, <\/span><b>betting on Siegemund winning is a value bet for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Value bet\/ the best odds: Siegemund winning @2.13 @pinnacle<\/b><\/p>\n<h4><b>Pegula \u2013 Sonmez: Time 8:00 EST<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><b>H2H: 0-0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jessica Pegula won the Charleston title at the very beginning of April. She has played only two matches since then. As a top-10 player, Pegula did not bother to play in smaller tournaments in Linz or Stuttgart. That\u2019s normal. Pegula wanted to rest up for Madrid and Rome and wait for those two tournaments to sharpen her game before the French Open. Pegula won one match and then lost in a blowout against eventual Madrid champion Marta Kostyuk. Zeynep Sonmez hasn\u2019t made deep runs in recent tournaments, but she has won at least one main-draw match in Stuttgart, Madrid, and Rome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2026\/01\/USATSI_26926630_168400550_lowres-e1771009562670.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>Best Bet to Make<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pegula, having played very few matches in Europe this spring, doesn\u2019t look like a sharp, in-form player. Sonmez hasn\u2019t been great, but she hasn\u2019t been terrible either, and he has had more match play in recent weeks. Sonmez should be reasonably comfortable in this match. She might not win it outright, but she should be able to keep it close. The bet here should lean toward Sonmez, either as a set spread or game spread wager. We\u2019ll go with the set spread. The price is great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That being said, <\/span><b>betting on Sonmez +1.5 sets is a value bet for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Value bet\/ the best odds: Sonmez +1.5 sets @2.25 @unibet<\/b><\/p>\n<h4><b>Grant \u2013 Mboko: Time 8:30 EST<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><b>H2H: 0-0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tyra Caterina Grant beat fellow Italian Lisa Pigato in three sets in the first round in Rome. Grant has 10 wins on clay in 2026, but a lot of those wins have come at the challenger level. Can Grant step up and beat a top-15 player on tour? This is her big chance. Victoria Mboko has played one match since Miami, a loss in Madrid to Caty McNally. Mboko has zero wins on clay this year. She will try to develop a rhythm on this surface before the French Open begins.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Best Bet to Make<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s a fascinating match to bet on. Grant is ranked outside the top 200. Mboko is in the top 15. Yet, Grant is the comfortable player on clay, not Mboko. Do you trust the gap in the rankings or the level of comfort on the surface? We think the gap in quality is so large that Grant\u2019s familiarity with clay and her presence as an Italian player in Rome just won\u2019t matter. Mboko is very rested and should be hungry to win.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That being said, <\/span><b>betting on Mboko winning 2:0 is a value bet for sure.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Value bet\/ the best odds: Mboko winning 2:0 @1.83 @1xbet<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Main Photo Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The WTA Rome tournament second round continues on Friday. The WTA is a very competitive tour right now. No one expected Marta Kostyuk to win Madrid. Will we see a completely unexpected champion in Rome? The French Open could be a lot more wide open than many people think. Will the coming days in Italy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5481,"featured_media":89903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[17400,4],"tags":[43754,17399,4184,3535,460,42845,18059,15,2873,18884],"class_list":["post-104473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-bets","category-wta","tag-2026-wta-rome","tag-best-bets","tag-ekaterina-alexandrova","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-laura-siegemund","tag-tyra-caterina-grant","tag-victoria-mboko","tag-wta","tag-wta-rome","tag-zeynep-sonmez"],"modified_by":"Kane Webb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104473","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\/5481"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104474,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104473\/revisions\/104474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}