Roman Safiullin vs Carlos Alcaraz Prediction & Betting Tips - Olympic Tournament

Prediction published on 30/07/2024, 11:23  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 30/07/2024 at 11:48 in Olympic Tournament Predictions

Second seed Carlos Alcaraz is up against unseeded Roman Safiullin in round three at the Paris Olympics. The winner of this match goes into the last 16 with the scheduled seeded opponent being Tommy Paul. Here's our prediction of this match.

Roman Saifullin is the world number 66 but hasn't been living up to that this year. He's just outside the top 100 in the Live Race but is going well in Paris. He's a neutral athlete in this games and has so far beaten 15th seed Alejandro Tabilo and unseeded Tomas Martin Etcheverry.

He turns 27 on August 7th and beating Alcaraz would definitely be an early birthday present. Before this Olympic tournament he had only won one of his last seven matches on clay. This is the first time he's won two matches in an ATP Tour clay event since Rome in 2023.

Carlos Alcaraz has only played his opponent once before. That was in the hard court Paris Masters last year and Safiullin actually beat him. The Spaniard is the second seed in this tournament and playing his first event since retaining his Wimbledon title.

He also won the French Open at Roland Garros this year. The first round of this Olympic tournament saw him drop only four games to Lebanon's Haby Habid. He also won his second round match in straight sets but Tallon Griekspoor did take him to a  second set tie-break. We go for over 17.5 games in this match.