Stefanos Tstsipas may be the top seed at the Mallorca Championships this week, but his form suggests he’s a vulnerable favorite, and his draw didn’t do him any favors.
Coming off a loss to Nicolas Jarry in the second round of ATP Halle last week, Tsitsipas could have done with an easier opponent in Round 1 than the rising Yannick Hanfmann.
The German is 15-5 in his last 20 matches, though most of those were on clay, and seven of them were qualifiers to get into main-level draws for Roland Garros, Rome and Madrid.
Even so, Hanfmann is not the type of opponent that an out-of-sorts Tsitsipas would have wanted to play in Round 1 of a 250-level tournament.
(5 a.m. ET., Tuesday)
Perhaps what’s most concerning for Tsitsipas in this event is that he has never really taken to grass-court tennis.
The Greek still has a winning record in 31 tour-level matches on the lawn, per Tennis Abstract, but his win percentage pales in comparison to the other two surfaces, and he’s barely over .500 in terms of set winning percentage.
Hanfmann’s grass splits aren’t anything to write home about –– he’s 4-6 in tour-level matches on the lawn –– but he’s got a couple of wins on the surface already this year, and he won his first-round match in Mallorca pretty comfortably.
Tsitsipas, meanwhile, is 1-2 on grass this season and those three matches came on the heels of a worrying performance against Carlos Alcaraz in the French Open quarterfinals.
Tsitsipas was having a terrific tournament before his loss to the World No. 1, and his clay season was pretty strong, but he was not competitive against Alcaraz and didn’t seem too fussed about making noise on the grass.
This is a warm-up tournament for Wimbledon, and the soft field reflects that notion, but even in this environment, it’s hard to imagine Tsitsipas making things look easy.
Hanfmann will need to play at a top level to win this match, but given what we’ve seen out of Tsitsipas this season and in his career on grass, I think the German has value to pull the outright upset on Tuesday morning.
The Bet: Yannick Hanfmann +330 (Caesars)