Hanfmann without a doubt?

The German seems to be starting with a nice head start over Giron in this match

Hanfmann is coming off a slight disappointment in Munich where he went out in the first round even though he was at home and wanted to do well. He ran into an excellent Blockx and the conditions that day were not good at all for the German, so I feel like cutting him some slack for that loss. This week he’s back on clay at altitude, the kind of clay where historically he plays his best tennis. Munich was too “muddy” in the first few days with low temperatures and rain, whereas Madrid will be good enough for his game in terms of both speed and bounce height, which are the main arguments in his favor. In terms of form this season they’re fairly similar, 12/8 for Giron and 12/7 for Hanfmann, but Giron has no wins on clay and that’s an issue.

This will be his first match of the year on clay, not even Houston to chew on, and in the end he’s coming off a loss in Miami, with no wins for over a month now. Last year he only won 4 matches on clay, against Tien/Shapo/Diallo/Fritz, none of them clay-courters. At the same time, with his very flat style of play he doesn’t naturally have a game that adapts well to clay, and I don’t think he really wants to adapt anyway. His source of motivation this week is the category of this tournament, an M1000 is no small thing and we can expect him to be combative, but that’s really all I can give him.

As for the rest, it’s 1–1 in the H2H but no match on clay, Hanfmann still has a huge advantage on this surface and we should expect a very low price on him.