Carlos Alcaraz vs Botic Van De Zandschulp Tips, Prediction & Live Stream - Dutchman can cover vs top seed in Rotterdam

Alcaraz is making his tournament debut in Rotterdam and the Spaniard has yet to fully flourish indoors - in fact, he's yet to make a tour-level final in these conditions, let alone win a title. Alcaraz is also coming off a disappointing Australian Open campaign, where he lost in the quarter-finals to Novak Djokovic, who was playing with a torn hamstring that forced his withdrawal in the next match. Van De Zandschulp will also be confident having pulled off the biggest win of his career over Alcaraz at the US Open last year. All things considered, Alcaraz should be able to dig this one out, but the Dutchman can cover a 5.5 games line in defeat.

Alcaraz leads 2-1, but as mentioned, Van De Zandschulp made headlines with his 6-1 7-5 6-4 demolition of the Spaniard at the 2024 US Open in their most-recent encounter.

It's not been an ideal start to the season for Alcaraz, who himself said he harbours ambitions of chasing down Jannik Sinner at the top of the rankings and improving his hardcourt game.

The 21-year-old battled his way through to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open without playing a lead-in tournament and was upstaged by Novak Djokovic, who was essentially playing on one leg.

It's not the first time we've seen Alcaraz struggle with his concentration in big matches on hardcourt and he seemed at a loss with how to deal with the situation.

Alcaraz wasn't great indoors to end the 2024 season, losing his second match at the Paris Masters and crashing out in the ATP Finals group stage following straight set defeats to Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev.

It's been a disappointing start to the season for Van De Zandschulp, with the Dutchman registering a 0-3 record, losing in the opening round of Auckland qualifying and the first rounds of the Australian Open and Montpellier.

Van De Zandschulp did have a tough opening round draw in Melbourne against top 10 player and home hope Alex de Minaur, but he was poor in his defeat to Tallon Griekspoor in Montpellier last week.

The Dutchman has also copped rough draws in Rotterdam over the last couple of years, running into Daniil Medvedev in 2023 and Jannik Sinner in 2024 - and now he gets Alcaraz in R1 for 2025.