Jannik Sinner will face Sebastian Korda at the 2024 ATP Monte-Carlo tennis tournament in an upcoming match. This match will mark the start of the clay-court season for Sinner, the champion from Miami in late March. The upcoming match in Monaco will be a second-round match in the draw, which is also known as the 2024 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. Sinner, as he often has this season, has come in with really short odds. He is priced at -900 (bet365) to defeat Korda on the moneyline. My Sinner vs Korda prediction is that the latter player will win the first set in this match.
Order of Play: Right-click/Open in the New Tab to check match times: subject to change
Jannik Sinner vs Sebastian Korda Head-to-Head Series
The Sinner vs Korda h2h is 1-1. Both of their previous matches were played on the hard court surface while their upcoming match will be on clay.
Korda won their last meeting, which took place early in the 2023 season in Adelaide. However, this is a heads-up series that could be taken lightly as they have never faced one another on clay. Furthermore, Sinner has improved since the time of their previous matches. He enters Monaco as the World No. 2 while Korda is the World No. 27.
The Draw: Right-click/Open the link in a new tab for the draw for the 2024 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters
Jannik Sinner's Recent Matches and Results
Sinner had a bye through the first round in Monte-Carlo. When we last saw Sinner play, it was March 31st and he was having no troubles with Grigor Dimitrov in the Miami Masters final. Sinner still just has one loss this season, which came at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard is not in the Monaco draw.
Sebastian Korda's Recent Matches and Results
Sebastian Korda opened his clay-court season in Monaco with a win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. The line score from the Monday match was 6-1, 6-2 -- a very good score for Korda to post against a decent opponent.
Previously, Korda was in Miami and Indian Wells where he went 2-2 in the two events combined. Both of his losses were competitive losses to high-ranked players. That doesn't bode great for his chances against World No. 2, Jannik Sinner.
Despite his win over ADK, Korda is not big into clay. You could look at his results last season. He entered just three events and he went 1-3 in them combined. All three of his losses were to players who were ranked outside of the Top 100 at the times of their matches. Meanwhile, his win over Davidovich Fokina was a win over a player who has struggled so far this season.
Sinner vs Korda Prediction: Korda wins first st
I think bettors should bet this match lightly and only use long odds. But what could be noted is that Sinner doesn't have a proven serve on clay. He ranks 31st on the ATP's serve-rating statistic when isolating clay-court results.
Conversely, Sinner is No. 1 on return-of-serve rating using the ATP's stats. It's clear that his redeeming skill in his return game on clay.
On that note, Korda ranks very low as a clay-court server but there is the last match to think about. Korda went 8-1 on aces to double faults against ADK. The American is unlikely to do that to Sinner but a lot of the trends that are factoring into ATP stats on clay are from a year ago.
I think bettors should take Korda to win the first set at +350 (bet365). In doing so, you are just hoping that Sinner's clay-court debut this season is a bit rusty and that Korda playing a round-one match helps the American out. Sinner has not played a clay-court match in about ten months, when he lost a five-set match at Roland Garros to Daniel Altmaier. If Sinner picks up where he left off, he could find himself in a coin toss.
Korda vs Sinner prediction: Draw at the 2024 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters
The winner of this match will face Jan-Lennard Struff in the next round. Sinner had to work to beat Struff in a match from Indian Wells about a month ago but the match was still fairly routine. With Alcaraz out, many will be looking for a 1 vs 2 final after Novak Djokovic convincingly opened his Monte Carlo efforts.
Additional reading: All previews for upcoming tennis matches!
