Sebastian Baez vs Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Cordoba

Prediction published on 09/02/2023, 09:09  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 09/02/2023 at 10:10 in Tennis Predictions

Fourth seeded Sebastian Baez takes on wildcard Tomas Barrios Vera in the Cordoba Open quarter finals. Waiting for the winner in the semi-finals of this clay court tournament could be the top seed Diego Schwartzmann. Baez began this week ranked 47th in the world, 16 places below the career high of 31st he achieved last August. it's been a slow start to the year for Baez with no wins in his first three tournaments, all played on hard courts. That included a first round loss to Jason Kubler in the first round of the Australian Open. Back on clay he's finally had his first win of the year. The Argentinian received a bye into the second round and comfortably beat qualifier Luciano Darderi in straight sets. Last year saw Baez reach three ATP Tour finals, all on clay. He won one of them, that was the Estoril Open where he beat Frances Tiafoe,so that shows just how good he can be on this surface.

Tomas Barrios Vera has done well to reach the third round considering at the start of the week he was ranked 212th. That's well below his career-high ranking of 124th that he was in last June. His two wins this week have taken him up to 196th in the live rankings. Vera has already reached one clay court final this year. That was a Challenger Tour event held in Brazil last month, losing to Andrea Collarini (ranked 231st that week) in straight sets. That was his third successive loss in a clay court Challenger Tour event. All four of his losses this year have been inflicted on him by players ranked outside the top 100. So far this week, he's beaten Daniel Galan and eighth seeded Bernabe Zapata Miralles after losing the first set. If he wants to reach the last four, he'll have to beat Baez for the first time. They had three meetings (all on clay) in 2021 on the Challenger Tour with Baez winning all three with only one set dropped. Baez can get a fourth win here.