The ATP Vienna Open features a strong draw that includes recent #1 Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who leads the tour with 56 victories, as well as former champions Andrey Rublev and Dominic Thiem, with the latter sure to have strong support in his home country with the Austrian having found some good late-season form. As always, we here at LWOT are offering our predictions for every match on the schedule, including Dominic Thiem vs Tommy Paul, but who will come out on top?
ATP Vienna Day 2 Predictions
Dan Evans vs Oscar Otte
Head-to-head: first meeting
Oscar Otte made it into the draw as a lucky loser, and while he could have had a worse matchup than Dan Evans (say Medvedev or Tsitsipas), he does not look likely to be much of a threat to the Brit. Otte hasn’t had a good win since grass-court season in June, and is just 6-15 for the year on hard courts. Evans has been playing largely mediocre tennis himself over the last two months, after a good run in Montreal that included victories over Taylor Fritz and Andrey Rublev, but he has a hard court record this year of 22-15, and a career win percentage on the surface 17 points higher than Otte. That should be enough to get him comfortably through, though perhaps not in straight sets.
Prediction: Evans in 3
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Denis Shapovalov vs Jurij Rodionov
Head-to-head: Rodionov 1-0 Shapovalov
After a long slump earlier in the season, Denis Shapovalov is mostly taking care of business now, although not exceeding expectations. But that is an improvement and should be enough over the Austrian wild card Jurij Rodionov, who is ranked #130 in the world and has not been rising this year. Strangely enough, Rodionov took their lone head-to-head right here in Vienna two years ago when the ranking ranking difference was about the same. A win for Rodionov is not entirely out of the question then, but there is a saying that lightning doesn’t strike twice for a reason.
Prediction: Shapovalov in 2
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Lorenzo Sonego vs Emil Ruusuvuori
Head-to-head: first meeting
Lorenzo Sonego has not followed up his first hard court title in Metz in very impressive fashion, and that win itself was a surprise in that he usually does not favour the surface. He is just under .500 on hard courts for the year, and for his record overall, and faces a much stronger hard court player in Emil Ruusuvuori despite the rankings being almost the same. Ruusuvuori has quietly put together a respectable season, going 34-28 overall with a 23-16 record on hard. He has a career win percentage on hard 13 points higher than the Italian, and is coming off a semifinal run in Stockholm that included a win over Frances Tiafoe. Sonego can be streaky, as he has proving over the last few weeks, which makes it hard to call his matches, but all signs point to a Ruusuvuori win here.
Prediction: Ruusuvuori in 3
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Hubert Hurkacz vs Frances Tiafoe
Head-to-head: Hurkacz 2-2 Tiafoe
Hubert Hurkacz had a strong summer—recording three top 10 wins and a victory over Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios, as well reaching two finals and winning one of them—but he doesn’t have a marquee win since. It might be a bad time to face Frances Tiafoe then, who is playing the best tennis of his life. The two have a similar record on hard this year, but Tiafoe’s last couple months have been excellent.
His recent exploits include a phenomenal run to the semifinals at the US Open, a recent win over Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Laver Cup, and a runner-up finish in Tokyo. All four of the previous meetings between these two have come on hard courts, and though Hurkacz has won the last two, Tiafoe is obviously capable of winning. That all makes this one extremely difficult to call, but expect the form man in Tiafoe to have just about enough.
Prediction: Tiafoe in 3
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