The ATP Adelaide International 2 will be the tournament that Arthur Rinderknech or Thanasi Kokkinakis win their maiden ATP Tour title. Either way the trophy engraver will have to earn their money. The crowd will definitely be pulling quite vociferously for the Australian, but who will win the trophy and 250 ranking points?
ATP Adelaide 2 Final Prediction
Thanasi Kokkinakis vs Arthur Rinderknech
H2H: First meeting
This will very much be a serve oriented match. Both men have a very high hold percentage on hard courts, 87% and 88% respectively throughout the last twelve months. In the week of this tournament that has gone up to 96% each. I think that we can expect a very tight tussle with the prospect of tiebreaks being easier to predict than the outcome itself.
Kokkinakis fought very hard to get into this final from a position of being a break down in the final set to Marin Cilic. He also blew a 6-2 lead in the tiebreak but finally won his 7th match point. This is both a concern and an inspiration. The fact that he struggled so badly to close out the match isn’t great but he showed great determination and inspiration to finally get over the line.
Rinderknech had it easier against Corentin Moutet. The Frenchman swept his countryman aside with his easy power. He will fight fire with fire here and the similarity of the games of the two finalists concerns me from a spectacle point of view.
In my view the Frenchman should be the slight favorite here. He is the higher ranked and more consistent player. He has also been the one that has shown more propensity to break their opponent in this tournament, but there isn’t much in it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a third set tiebreak decide this, but I will edge towards Rinderknech to be the victor.
Prediction: Rinderknech in 3
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