Madison Keys vs Maria Sakkari 4/29/22 Madrid Tennis Picks, Predictions, Odds

Maria Sakkari and Madison Keys meet in the first round of the 2022 tennis Madrid Open.

Maria Sakkari enters this tournament on a three match losing streak, which includes a straight sets loss to Laura Siegemund in Stuttgart. Sakkari retired in the second set of her most recent performance, a match where she got just 49 percent of her first serves in play. It’s going to be interesting to see what Sakkari looks like given her form and now the fact she’s dealing with some sort of discomfort or possible injury. Sakkari is 2-3 for her career in Madrid, making it one of her least successful WTA 1000 tournaments. Sakkari has won six of her last nine matches on clay court.

Madison Keys enters this tournament losing three of her last four matches, but it’s fair to claim she’s had a lot of tough recent opponents and her recent outing against Belinda Bencic was competitive. Keys hasn’t played a match in three weeks, so she’s well rested, and it really always comes down to if she has her serve under control. When Keys is hitting her spots, few can beat her, regardless of surface. With spotty play since Australia, it’s hard to predict which Keys is going to show up. Keys has 21 career wins over top-10 players, and two of those wins came this year. Keys has split her last eight matches on clay court.

Sakkari beat Keys in both meetings in straight sets. The matches took place in 2020 Australian Open and 2021 Doha.

You can make a case for either player here, and Keys is a live dog with her ability to take her opponent’s racket out of her hands. However, Keys has beaten just one top-10 player on clay since 2017. Also, Sakkari beat Keys in both meetings on hard court, the American’s best surface. You can also argue this is one of the cheaper prices we’ve seen with Sakkari in a while.

I have to side with Sakkari in this spot.