{"id":51201,"date":"2022-07-31T18:21:15","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T22:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=51201"},"modified":"2022-07-31T20:56:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T00:56:27","slug":"atp-washington-day-1-predictions-kudla-mmoh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/07\/31\/atp-washington-day-1-predictions-kudla-mmoh\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Washington Day 1 Predictions Including Denis Kudla vs Michael Mmoh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ATP Washington gives players a chance to improve their hard court prowess ahead of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/us-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">US Open<\/a>. And even the first-round matchups indicate that this will be a week to remember.<\/p>\n<p>Who will win and who will fall short? I give my best guesses. As always, we here at LWOS give our thoughts on each of the matches. In addition to this article, we split the day&#8217;s matches between two articles. One features <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/07\/31\/atp-washington-day-1-predictions-kozlov-draper\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Stefan Kozlov vs Jack Draper<\/a> and the other features <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/07\/31\/atp-washington-day-1-predictions-murray-ymer\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Andy Murray vs Mikael Ymer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>ATP Washington Day 1 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Kyle Edmund vs Yosuke Watanuki<\/h4>\n<p>Head to Head: never played<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Edmund has returned to the tour from injury and made the round of 16 at the hard-court <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/07\/24\/challenger-tour-weekly-recap-passaro-piros-titles\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Winnipeg Challenger<\/a> last week. However, Edmund&#8217;s groundstrokes were erratic in his loss to Alafia Ayeni. Yosuke Watanuki did well to qualify for Washington without losing a set. Watanuki won over 75% of his first serves in qualifying victories over Andrew Fenty and Mitchell Krueger.<\/p>\n<p>These two have never played before. Edmund has a big first serve and a heavy forehand that dominates from the baseline, but he&#8217;s still shaking off the rust from his long absence and hasn&#8217;t looked like himself yet. Watanuki is fast around the court and is very solid from the baseline. He will make Edmund play a lot of extra shots and will hit with enough depth to make it difficult for Edmund to attack. Expect Watanuki to win this match.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Watanuki in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"jVvJBK-fS2FRSbOQjhoAWA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1363750730\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'jVvJBK-fS2FRSbOQjhoAWA',sig:'ambl1F4kycas1pnR73tYCKKPlEv8i5fpYze4jRQmlE0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1363750730',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Bradley Klahn vs Adrian Mannarino<\/h4>\n<p>Head to Head: 1-0 Mannarino<\/p>\n<p>Bradley Klahn is back playing for the first time since 2020. However, it hasn&#8217;t been a successful return for the American, losing all four matches he&#8217;s played in 2022 and only winning one set in those four matches combined. Adrian Mannarino took advantage of his lucky-loser spot in Atlanta, reaching the quarterfinals of the ATP-Tour event. Mannarino was a set away from the semifinals against Alex De Minaur, but eventually melted down in the heat.<\/p>\n<p>Mannarino leads the head to head 1-0, but that match was in 2015 and irrelevant to this matchup. Mannarino plays a consistency, flat lefty game, with excellent placement around the court. Klahn plays a much heavier lefty game and has a powerful lefty forehand. However, his rally tolerance has been poor since his comeback and, given Mannarino&#8217;s consistency, the unforced errors should flow against the Frenchman. In addition, the awkwardness of Mannarino&#8217;s flat game should give an undercooked Klahn all sorts of problems. Mannarino should win this one with ease.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Mannarino in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"QuDuBJ9pRchuGtmNTnfPug\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1411499768\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'QuDuBJ9pRchuGtmNTnfPug',sig:'Mmou0OWWokXG2zQ2n5U8SklXT8TSacBCWx3SXoPeW48=',w:'594px',h:'418px',items:'1411499768',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Denis Kudla vs Michael Mmoh<\/h4>\n<p>Head to Head: 3-2 Kudla<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2021\/06\/29\/denis-kudla-grass-court-specialist\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Denis Kudla<\/a> kicked off his 2022 American hard-court season with a first-round loss to Mackenzie McDonald in Atlanta. Kudla only won 49% of his service points against McDonald, a number that needs to improve if he wants to make a run in Washington. Michael Mmoh had been struggling, but managed to qualify for Washington without losing a set. However, Mmoh played weaker competition in Raymond Sarmiento and JC Aragone, so it&#8217;s hard to read too much into his qualifying campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Kudla leads the head to head 3-2, having won three-straight matchups between the two, including a three-set victory in Sarasota earlier this season. Kudla is comfortable with playing offense, as his groundstrokes cut through the court nicely and he understands the right time in a given point to pull the trigger. Mmoh, on the other hand, relies more on getting a lot of balls in play deep in the court, but struggles when having to step up in the court and play aggressive tennis. Given Kudla&#8217;s foot speed, Mmoh will be forced out of his comfort zone and will have to take more risks during points than he&#8217;s comfortable with.<\/p>\n<p>Kudla&#8217;s combination of being quick and play defense at a high level and ability to step up in the court and rip big groundstrokes will be key in this match.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Kudla in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo from Getty.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ATP Washington gives players a chance to improve their hard court prowess ahead of the US Open. And even the first-round matchups indicate that this will be a week to remember. Who will win and who will fall short? I give my best guesses. As always, we here at LWOS give our thoughts on each [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2983,"featured_media":47918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1877,15551,16546,17988,5352,7629,2401,16182,187,17987,389,17514,2373,2369,4742,16643],"class_list":["post-51201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-adrian-mannarino","tag-adrian-mannarino-predictions","tag-atp-washington-predictions","tag-bardley-klahn-predictions","tag-bradley-klahn","tag-citi-open-predictions","tag-denis-kudla","tag-denis-kudla-predictions","tag-kyle-edmund","tag-kyle-edmund-predictions","tag-michael-mmoh","tag-michael-mmoh-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-yosuke-watanuki","tag-yosuke-watanuki-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}