They could be brothers!

A huge number of similarities between these two Argentinians, this promises an exciting match!

We’ve got two clay-court guys who shine during the clay season and then pretty much disappear the rest of the time. Well, they don’t win much but they do try hard on faster surfaces. They’re not just grinders either, we’ve seen way worse in terms of moonballing (hi JM Cerundolo), and I actually find them nice to watch. Carabelli leaves a better impression on me though: he’s coming in full of confidence with a Challenger title and he just beat his buddy Comesana in a great battle. There were some questions about how he’d handle the back-to-back matches before his R1, and we got our answer; now he’s got an extra rest day and that should be enough for him to be ready to go back to war!

Navone is fresher but a bit less in rhythm, he was supposed to play Rosario too but he caught a little virus. Nothing to worry about, anyway his R1 was good but the guy across the net was a disaster, so I want to see more! I’d say in 2024 he had the edge over Carabelli, but in 2025 and this season he’s a bit below in terms of level of play. He might prove me wrong, but it’s true that I find him a bit inconsistent in his matches, he throws in some real crap sets at times and his serve has no quality at all.

Carabelli serves a bit better, is in better form/confidence, and he leads 2–1 in the H2H. I’d give the physical and mental freshness edge to Navone, but apart from that I can’t really say things lean his way. They were supposed to play doubles together here, but apparently Carabelli asked to withdraw because of a shoulder issue. I didn’t see anything on that front during his first-round match, and in my opinion he mostly just wants to recover calmly.