Pick of the Day: Taylor Fritz vs. Alexander Zverev, Rome

In one of the most exciting matchups of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia thus far, Taylor Fritz takes on Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals. Fritz is coming off a really impressive win over Grigor Dimitrov. The Bulgarian made Fritz work extremely hard in that match, especially on his serve. But Fritz went 11 for 11 on break points saved. His confidence should be at an all-time high, especially after redlining and winning the final set 6-1.

But even so, Zverev is a little sharper than the American—I'll explain—and I like the idea of backing him here.

According to TennisViz and Tennis Data Innovations, Zverev has been better than Fritz when it comes to steal percentage (46% to 32%), baseline battles (58% to 55%), serve quality (9.2 to 8.8), return quality (6.6 to 6.2) and forehand quality (8.4 to 7.2) since arriving in Rome. That last stat is really interesting, as Zverev’s forehand can occasionally be a big weakness. But he has been hitting it really well over the last two weeks. And one of the only places in which Fritz has had a real advantage over Zverev is in backhand quality, where his 8.0 shot quality leads all remaining players in the field. But Zverev has a world-class backhand, so I’d be surprised if Fritz’s outdoes him from that wing.

The reality is that Zverev is just a better version of Fritz, especially on clay. Both of them are big powerful players that have booming serves and the ability to be better than they should be from the baseline considering their size. But Zverev is a little more reliable as a server and returner, and his ability to bunker down and grind from the baseline is what makes him tremendous on this surface. “Claylor” has definitely made significant strides on the dirt over the years, but Zverev has the fourth-best clay-court winning percentage (73.3%) over the last 52 weeks. And he’s looking like a real threat to lift his first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros next year.

All in all, I’m willing to deal with some juice to back Zverev to win this match outright. But I’d definitely advise you not to expect this to be straightforward. This should be a really physical match, featuring some lengthy sets. I just trust Zverev’s slight edge as an all-court player to help him win out in the end.

Pick: Zverev ML (-160)