Daily Tennis Tips – Friday 23rd May

See below for our expert daily tennis tips and best bets around the courts for Friday May 23, 2025!

Sixth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime faces third seed and 2020 champion Andrey Rublev in a blockbuster Hamburg Open semi.

Rublev boasts a commanding 6-1 record in this rivalry (2-0 on clay), winning the last four straight – including the 2024 Madrid Masters final and their Doha semi-final earlier this year.

Rublev has endured a miserable clay swing prior to this week and slipped to 17th in the rankings. But he’s turned a corner somewhat in Hamburg, where he was also the runner-up in 2019, beating Damir Dzumhur and Justin Engel in straight sets, and Luciano Darderi in three.

World No.30 Auger-Aliassime has been even further out of sorts, failing to win a match since exiting the Miami Masters in the Round of 32. But he’s put away Daniel Altmaier and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in straight sets here, then won a barnburner against Alexandre Muller 7-6 6-7 6-3.

Rublev, though, with an outstanding history at this tournament and a stronger overall clay CV, looks like the pick here.

Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Italy’s Flavio Cobolli square off for a place in the Hamburg Open as both players build impressively for Roland Garros.

Etcheverry is 4-0 against Cobolli. The first three encounters were at Challenger and qualifying level in 2021-22, while he won their first-round clash at the Australian Open this year in four sets.

World No.35 Cobolli went on to win his maiden ATP title last month at the Romanian Open, while he beat Holger Rune at the Madrid Masters. This week he struggled past Vitaliy Sachko in three before downing Spaniards Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (6-4 7-5) and Roberto Bautista Agut (7-6 6-0).

Still searching for his first ATP title after losing three clay-court finals, 55th-ranked Etcheverry has been in patchy-at-best form but has beaten Franciso Comesana (7-6 6-3), Camilo Ugo Carabelli (6-4 6-4) and Jiri Lehecka (7-5 6-3) in impressive style this week.

Etcheverry’s record in this rivalry is hard to get past, but this shapes as an arm-wrestle to be decided by fine margins.

Elena Rybakina and Beatriz Haddad Maia have both rebounded back to form at the Internationaux de Strasbourg and now lock horns for a spot in the final.

Haddad Maia is 2-1 against Rybakina, winning at the Abu Dhabi Open and the Stuttgart Open in 2023 before Rybakina’s victory at Wimbledon that year.

World No.12 Rybakina has emerged from an uncustomary patchy run of form to defeat Xinyu Wang (6-1 6-3) and Magda Linette (7-5 6-3) this week.

Haddad Maia, slipped to No.23, has had a very unhappy few months but has disposed of rising force Clara Tauson (3-6 6-4 7-5), Ashlyn Krueger (7-6 6-3) and world No.10 Emma Navarro (3-6 7-6 6-2).

Rybakina’s powerful groundstrokes will present a different challenge for the crafty Haddad Maia, but if she can upset the former Wimbledon champ’s rhythm enough she shapes as a tempting value option as a $3.50 outsider.

Danielle Collins, the 2024 runner-up, and Liudmila Samsonova are vying for their first WTA final appearance in a year at the Internationaux de Strasbourg.

The semi-finalists’ only previous encounter was at the 2023 Citi Open, where Samsonova romped to a 6-1 6-3 win.

It had been a poor clay season for Samsonova so far, but she powered past Linda Noskova (6-1 7-5) and Diane Parry (6-4 6-4) earlier this week before outlasting big gun Paula Badosa 6-4 3-6 6-4 for her third top-10 win of 2025.

Tumbling to No.46, Collins found some form in Rome with an upset of Iga Swiatek, before navigating three-setters against slam winners Sofia Kenin and Emma Raducanu in Strasbourg. Anna Kalinskaya pulled out of their quarter-final date.

Samsonova is a $2.30 outsider here and has never appeared in a clay-court final, but the win over Badosa has set her up nicely for a run at the trophy.