The ATP 500 event in Vienna is filled to the brim with top players including Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Andrey Rublev. Still, the rest of the field ain’t bad either. As always, we here at LWOT are previewing and predicting every match on the schedule on day two, including Hubert Hurkacz vs Frances Tiafoe. But who will advance?
ATP Vienna Day 2 Predictions
Grigor Dimitrov vs Thiago Monteiro
Head-to-head: First meeting
Grigor Dimitrov is officially in a bit of a funk. What started as a few losses here or there has now become a six-match losing streak against Top 100 players. Still, if he was going to pick his form up, what better place to do it than indoors against Thiago Monteiro. He serves well enough to have earned three of his eight titles on indoors hard-courts whilst Monteiro is 2-19 in completed matches against top-50 players on hard-courts in general (0-5 indoors).
Though there are question marks over Dimitrov’s form, this is a very good opportunity to get a much-needed win under his belt. We’ll give him time to settle into proceedings but it’s difficult to see him losing overall.
Prediction: Dimitrov in 3
Cameron Norrie vs Pedro Cachin
Head-to-head: 1-0 Cachin
Pedro Cachin is an in-form player for sure but it remains to be seen how far that form will take him. His game suggests his peak belongs to the clay and, even then, there are many members of the top-50 that should be able to overpower him.
Cam Norrie won’t look to blow Cachin off the court but his game will feel alien to the sturdy baselining skills of the Argentinian. He rarely loses to players of Cachin’s ilk anymore and will be keen to get his Vienna campaign underway with a bang. If Cachin wins, it will be a sign of bigger things to come from him but, from what we’ve seen so far, we have to side with the Brit.
Prediction: Norrie in 2.
Dominic Thiem vs Tommy Paul
Head-to-head: 1-0 Thiem
The popcorn match of the day! In a strange twist however, there are doubts over Tommy Paul’s form where there are none over Dominic Thiem‘s. Paul went down rather tamely to Mikael Ymer in his title defence in Stockholm whilst Thiem has been on a tear the past few weeks in notching three Top 30 wins in Gijon and Antwerp (Hurkacz once and Francisco Cerundolo twice).
Form is the most relevant factor here as that loss to Ymer was very abnormal for Paul who should have excelled in those conditions. Thiem has been taking care of business against players ranked between #50 and #100 – with Paul arguably playing around that level, we’re backing Thiem fairly heavily.
Prediction: Thiem in 2
Main Photo from Getty.
