With a number of star names set to take to the court on day three at the ATP Geneva Open it should be a thrilling day of tennis in Switzerland. As ever, we here at LWOT will be offering our predictions for every match on the slate in Geneva, including Roger Federer vs Pablo Andujar, but who will advance and who will fall to defeat?
ATP Geneva Open Day 3 Predictions
Feliciano Lopez vs Daniel Altmaier
Head-to-head: Altmaier 1-0 Lopez
This is a match that Feliciano Lopez would likely have expected to win at a canter when he was at the peak of his powers. But the Spaniard’s star has been on the wane for some years, which is no surprise when he is due to celebrate his 40th birthday later this season. Indeed, it is a mark of his decline that he lost to Daniel Altmaier in straight sets in their only previous meeting, which came last season in the first round at the French Open.
Altmaier went on to reach the fourth round in Paris, comfortably the best showing of his professional career, but he has struggled since. In fact, he failed to win another match in 2020 and has just six wins to his name so far this season. But he should be accustomed to the conditions after playing two rounds of qualifying, losing in the second to Marco Cecchinato, whilst Lopez has struggled badly on the clay in recent years. Expect the lucky-loser Altmaier to claim a much-needed win.
Prediction: Altmaier in 3
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Fernando Verdasco vs Ilya Ivashka
Head-to-head: first meeting
Fernando Verdasco is another veteran Spaniard whose powers appear to be declining sharply. Verdasco has played relatively little tennis so far this season and is still searching for his first win of the year after first-round exits in Miami, Estoril and Madrid. Ilya Ivashka, in contrast, has impressed this season, picking up seven wins at tour-level, with the highlight of his year so far his run to the semifinals in Munich last month, where he upset Alexander Zverev. With Verdasco in no kind of form at all, expect him to pick up win number eight here.
Prediction: Ivashka in 2
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Fabio Fognini vs Guido Pella
Head-to-head: Fognini 3-2 Pella
It has been an almost entirely miserable season so far for Guido Pella. The Argentine has carved out an excellent career, maximising his talents to notch 113 tour-level wins and pick up an ATP title in Sao Paolo, but he has looked nothing like the player once ranked 20th in the world so far in 2021. He has won just two of his nine matches and lost in the first round five times, with injury problems which kept him out of action throughout much of February and the entirety of March not helping his cause.
Fabio Fognini has not performed much better. An 11-11 win-loss record is certainly below-par for a player of his ability, with his only effort of note a run to the quarterfinals at the ATP Monte Carlo Masters, where he was defending champion. But 11 wins is considerably more than two and, in truth, there has been little to suggest that Pella is on the cusp of turning his season around. Expect Fognini to be the man to reach the second round at the ATP Geneva Open.
Prediction: Fognini in 3
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Thiago Monteiro vs Laslo Djere
Head-to-head: first meeting
Thiago Monteiro and Laslo Djere are both players who look to have reasonably bright futures ahead of them, but are still someway short of achieving their full potential. Nor is either man having a particularly successful season, with Monteiro posting a 9-7 record for the year at this level whilst Djere has gone 9-11. Djere is, in fact, a man in dire need of a win, with the Serbian having lost his last four matches, a fairly disastrous loss of form when he has been playing on his favoured surface.
That has brought whatever momentum he created by reaching the final in Cagliari to a crashing halt. Monteiro is hardly in better form, however, with the Brazilian’s only win so far during the European clay-court swing coming in the first round of qualifying in Rome and at the expense of Mikhail Kukushkin, not a player noted for his clay-court prowess. With both men likely to be short of confidence as a result, Djere’s greater pedigree may well see the Serbian over the line in what could prove to be a close and nervy encounter.
Prediction: Djere in 3
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