It’s been a long two weeks since we last saw competitive tennis, with players having been complying with the mandatory quarantine imposed in Australia. But the season will now get underway in earnest with warm-up events ahead of the Australian Open, including the Murray River Open. A number of top players, including Stan Wawrinka, will be competing later in the week, but there are plenty of intriguing matchups on day one and, as ever, we here at LWOT will be offering our predictions across the board. But who will reach the second round?<\/p>\n
Head-to-head:<\/strong> Tiafoe 1-1 Moutet<\/p>\n Frances Tiafoe is 5-2 in his last seven matches. This includes a semifinal-showing in Nur-Sultan to end 2020 and then a quarterfinal in Delray Beach to begin the 2021 season. Corentin Moutet, meanwhile, hasn’t played a match yet in 2021, with his last tournament the Paris Masters last year, where he beat Salvatore Caruso in three sets in the first round before withdrawing ahead of a second-round clash with former-world #3 Marin Cilic.<\/p>\n Their head-to-head is tied at one win apiece, with both matchups coming late last season. Moutet won on the clay in Sardinia, a defeat Tiafoe avenged in Nur-Sultan. And with Tiafoe\u2019s game starting to click again, the American will feel that he should have made it further than quarterfinals in Delray Beach. Generally, he\u2019s doing a good job controlling the baseline with his powerful groundstrokes, whilst his court-coverage has also impressed.<\/p>\n Moutet, who plays a tricky lefty game, hasn\u2019t played a competitive match in some time, and with his approach partly reliant on pulling off low-margin touch shots, it\u2019s unclear how he will have been affected by the two weeks in quarantine. But this is ultimately a match that Tiafoe is the favourite in regardless. Put simply, on a hard court he has the matchup advantage over Moutet, who is at his best on the clay.<\/p>\n Prediction: Tiafoe in 2
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