Matteo Berrettini enters his opening round Italian Open match as a -213 favorite over Alexei Popyrin.

The betting public agrees. 86% of bets are on the Italian, but the ATP clay data tells a different story.

Read on for our Popyrin vs Berrettini predictions for Thursday, May 7, and don’t forget to check our Matchday Picks transparency page for the results of our Matchday Picks.

Popyrin vs. Berrettini: What the H2H Actually Tells Us

Matteo Berrettini leads the head-to-head 3-1, which sounds convincing until you check the surface.

All four meetings came on hard courts. This is their first-ever meeting on clay, which makes the previous meetings far less useful.

We’ll begin our Popyrin vs Berrettini predictions from scratch on this one.

Why the Clay Numbers Favor Popyrin

The ATP Tour’s own clay metrics tell a different story.

On clay serve ratings over the last 52 weeks, Alexei Popyrin ranks 14th. Berrettini ranks 25th.

Popyrin holds serve at 84.5% on the surface, wins 76.4% of first-serve points, and averages 8.7 aces per match.

Berrettini holds at 82.0%, wins 72.3% of first-serve points, and averages just 4.0 aces per match.

Popyrin is the better clay server of the two. That’s not a narrative. That’s the data.

The return side compounds the problem for Berrettini. Among 80 players tracked on the ATP clay return leaderboard, Berrettini ranks 65th, converting just 36.9% of break points.

He’s near the bottom of the tour in the one skill he needs most to justify favorite pricing against a big server on a slow surface.

Clay Form: Identical, Not Lopsided

Tennis Abstract’s dominance ratio, a measure of how dominant a player is across all points played, shows Popyrin and Berrettini at exactly 1.07 on clay over the last 52 weeks.

Both men are 8-6 and 8-8, respectively, but Popyrin is the one with the winning record on the surface.

Berrettini’s recent clay losses include a 6-3, 6-2 defeat to Joao Fonseca at Monte Carlo and straight-set losses to Vit Kopriva and Dino Prizmic, both ranked well below him.

Popyrin’s clay losses came against Casper Ruud, one of the tour’s best clay-court players, and players like Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe, and Cam Norrie.

The levels aren’t separated by the margin the line suggests.

Popyrin vs Berrettini predictions

Alexei Popyrin ML +172

Berrettini’s 3-1 H2H advantage disappears once you realize every match came on hard courts.

On clay, Popyrin is the better server by ATP metrics, Berrettini is a bottom-tier returner who converts barely more than one in three break points, and their dominance ratios over the past year are identical.

The public is betting a name. The numbers say this match is much closer than the odds imply. At +172, that’s real value.

Full 2026 Italian Open Intelligence Command Center

Phil Naessens

Phil Naessens is a tennis betting analyst and former tennis coach with decades of experience in player development and match analysis. He is the founder of Crush Rush News and host of the Crush & Rush Tennis Podcast, focusing on price-first betting strategy, market efficiency, and transparency in sports wagering.