29-year-old Italian Lorenzo Sonego has endured a tough start to his clay-court campaign, facing first-round eliminations in Marrakesh and Monte-Carlo (he comes into this event on a three-match losing streak).
2025 ATP Tour
Masters 1000
Madrid Open
La Caja Magica, Madrid, Spain (Outdoor Clay)
Selected Round of 128 Matches- 23rd April
Lorenzo Sonego 1.29 vs Miomir Kecmanovic 0.61
Sonego has been generally quite poor this season, being eliminated in the first round of five events. However, he produced the best Grand Slam result of his career in Melbourne, falling to Ben Shelton in his maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance. He just hasn’t been able to build on that result. I see him as a slightly inferior version of fellow countryman Lorenzo Musetti. He favours an all-court, finesse-based game and doesn’t mind finishing points off at the net. He has a solid serve and dynamic forehand and has done well on clay in the past, twice reaching the 4th round of the French Open while reaching the semifinals of the Rome Masters.
Solid baseliner Miomir Kecmanovic brings a decent 12-9 record into this year’s Madrid Masters (though most of his positive results came in the opening salvos of the season). The Serb really started well this year, reaching the semifinals in Adelaide before a respectable 3rd round run in the Aussie Open. He then broke a three-year title drought, beating in-form Alejandro Davidovich-Fokina in the Delray Beach final. He has cooled a bit since then and hasn’t looked at his best since the tour moved to clay. Miomir Kecmanovic is an aggressive baseliner who has performed well on clay in the past, winning the Austrian Open in 2020 and finishing runner-up at the 2023 Estoril Open. He can generate formidable topspin on that forehand wing, but he needs to work on his consistency.
The Verdict: Sonego to win in three at 4- This has been an intense head-to-head rivalry, with Sonego currently pipping Kecmanovic at three wins to two. Kecmanovic has won their only previous clay-court meeting, seeing off Sonego in straight sets at the 2022 Rio Open. I think a three-set duel is likely given how well matched these guys are. I think I would probably fancy Sonego given Kecmanovic’s poor history in Masters 1000 clay-court events (he has never gone beyond the 3rd round of a Masters event on clay).
