Daily Tennis Tips – Tuesday 20th May

See below for our expert daily tennis tips and best bets around the courts for Tuesday May 20, 2025!

World No.10 Paula Badosa is belatedly warming up for her French Open tilt at the Internationaux de Strasbourg, where she lines up against Marie Bouzkova in the Round of 16.

Badosa is 3-0 against Bouzkova, most recently winning at the 2024 Citi Open.

But the Spanish star hasn’t been sighted since the Miami Masters due to a back injury, missing the entire clay swing to date. Badosa is a handy clay-courter with a French Open quarter-final and Madrid Masters semi to her name, as well as winning the 2021 Belgrade Open.

World No.50 Bouzkova beat Tatjana Maria and Caroline Dolehide in qualifying for this tournament, then disposed of Alize Cornet 6-2 6-1 in the first round. The Czech had some handy wins in Madrid and Rome, including a demolition of Beatriz Haddad Maia at the latter.

With Badosa so short on court time and Bouzkova building some momentum, the underdog is solid value at $2.60

Big gun Elena Rybakina has struggled for consistent form of late, but she completes her French Open preparation in Strasbourg – kicking off with a Round of 16 encounter with Xinyu Wang.

Rybakina won their only previous clash, back in 2019 at the Jiangxi Open.

The former Wimbledon champ, a two-time quarter-finalist at Roland Garros, has slipped to No.12 and exited the Madrid and Rome Masters in the Round of 32, at the hands of Elina Svitolina and Bianca Andreescu, respectively.

World No.42 Wang beat Eva Lys 6-4 7-5 in the first round here, bouncing back from three straight WTA main draw losses in Miami (to Veronika Kudermetova), Madrid (to Maria Sakkari) and Rome (to Kamila Rakhimova).

The 23-year-old reached the third round of the past two French Opens but her clay CV is otherwise brief.

Rybakina will view this as a gift-wrapped opportunity to regain some rhythm and should take out this clash comfortably.

Second seed Frances Tiafoe gets his German Open campaign underway against Bu Yunchaokete.

World No.15 Tiafoe made the Houston Open final (he won the tournament in 2023 and was runner-up in 2024) in a strong start to the clay swing, but he’s struggled to maintain that momentum and lost his first match at the Rome Masters to Sebastian Ofner.

Yunchaokete, ranked 70th, is 5-14 at tour level in 2025 and is coming off first-round exits in Madrid and Rome, to Jacob Fearnley and Luciano Darderi. But he made the final of a Challenger event in Turin last week, eventually going down to Alexander Bublik.

By far the more credentialled player – particularly on clay – Tiafoe is a slam-dunk to chalk up a straight-sets win.

Giovanni Meptshi Perricard and Alexander Bublik both come into this German Open first-round encounter off Challenger tournament wins.

World No.32 Mpetshi Perricard took out a title in Bordeaux – after going 0-4 on the clay swing so far at ATP level – while 51st-ranked Bublik won in Turin, beating the likes of Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Bu Yunchaokete.

Bublik has been in good form, beating Alex Michelsen, Alexei Popyrin and Andrey Rublev to reach the last 16 at the Madrid Masters, and taking a set off Casper Ruud in Rome.

The head-to-head is one-all: Bublik win in three sets at the 2023 Antwerp Open, while Mpetshi Perricard prevailed on clay in the 2024 Lyon Open semi-finals.

Bublik’s recent revival is hard to overlook here against the big-serving Frenchman, despite his Lyon success on the red dirt last year.