{"id":13974,"date":"2026-05-08T08:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/13974\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T08:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:22:20","slug":"rome-tennis-picks-cerundolo-vs-tabilo-griekspoor-vs-blockx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/13974\/","title":{"rendered":"Rome tennis picks: Cerundolo vs. Tabilo, Griekspoor vs. Blockx"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Seeds Francisco Cerundolo and Tallon Griekspoor may have tough opening matches on their hands at the Rome Masters on Friday. They are going up against Alejandro Tabilo and Alexander Blockx, respectively.
Alejandro Tabilo vs. (25) Francisco Cerundolo
Tabilo is on a nice run heading into second-round action at the Internazionali BNL d\u2019Italia<\/a> on Friday. The 35th-ranked Chilean is coming off a title at last week\u2019s stacked Aix-en-Provence Challenger and he destroyed Pablo Carreno Busta 6-2, 6-1 on Wednesday. Tabilo\u2019s clay-court exploits in 2026 also include a runner-up performance at the Rio de Janiero ATP 500.<\/p>\n

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Up next for the left-hander on Friday is a fourth showdown against Cerundolo, who leads the head-to-head series 2-1. However, both of Cerundolo\u2019s wins came at least five years ago at the Challenger level before Tabilo scored a 6-4, 6-1 victory on the red clay of Cordoba in 2022. Cerundolo has been solid but unspectacular on the European clay-court swing, with a second-round result in Monte-Carlo, a quarterfinal effort in Barcelona, and a fourth-round showing in Madrid. The 27th-ranked Argentine could be on upset alert against an in-form opponent who reached the Rome semifinals in 2024.<\/p>\n

Pick: Tabilo in 3<\/p>\n

(29) Tallon Griekspoor vs. Alexander Blockx
Blockx is surging up the rankings and has a chance to be seeded at Roland Garros if he wins two more matches in Rome. The 21-year-old has climbed to 36th in the world thanks to a 10-4 record on the main tour this season, which includes a breakthrough semifinal result at the Rome Masters. Blockx continued his outstanding form with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Italian wild card Federico Cina on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Griekspoor can end his opponent\u2019s hopes for a French Open seed on Friday, but the Dutchman has to be considered the underdog in this matchup even though he is higher ranked. The injury-plagued world No. 31 is a dreadful 1-4 on clay since retiring in the Dubai final against Daniil Medvedev. Blockx also has the advantage of having already played \u2014 and won \u2014 a match in Rome, so the Belgian really should win this one without too much trouble.<\/p>\n

Pick: Blockx in 2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seeds Francisco Cerundolo and Tallon Griekspoor may have tough opening matches on their hands at the Rome Masters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10207,8959,8714,10208,8715,27,5483,10209],"class_list":{"0":"post-13974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rome","8":"tag-alejandro-tabilo","9":"tag-alexander-blockx","10":"tag-atp-rome","11":"tag-francisco-cerundolo","12":"tag-internazionali-bnl-ditalia","13":"tag-rome","14":"tag-rome-masters","15":"tag-tallon-griekspoor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}