{"id":55214,"date":"2023-02-26T20:55:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T01:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=55214"},"modified":"2023-02-26T20:55:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T01:55:16","slug":"atp-dubai-day-1-predictions-zverev-lehecka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/02\/26\/atp-dubai-day-1-predictions-zverev-lehecka\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Dubai Day 1 Predictions Including Alexander Zverev vs Jiri Lehecka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Day 1 at the ATP event in Dubai will feature a lot of exciting action. While world #1 Novak Djokovic and recent Rotterdam and Dubai champion Daniil Medvedev won&#8217;t be in action yet, there&#8217;ll still be plenty of top level players in action, including recent Australian Open quarterfinalists Jiri Lehecka and Andrey Rublev as well as the reigning Olympic champion Alexander Zverev, who&#8217;s trying to get back to his best after injury.<\/p>\n<h2>ATP Dubai Day 1 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Alexei Popyrin vs Pavel Kotov<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Popyrin 1-0 Kotov<\/p>\n<p>On paper, this is the least glamorous match of the day, but it should at least be very tight and unpredictable. Popyrin is having the better year, including a great victory over Taylor Fritz at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/australian-open\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Australian Open<\/a>, and he has the higher ceiling of the pair, but he&#8217;s also very prone to inconsistency. It&#8217;s a very hard match to call, it could genuinely go either way.<br \/>\n<strong>Prediction:<\/strong> Popyrin in 3<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"kXW7nHJtTN5A69zJJNg-Bg\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1458141800\" 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:'kXW7nHJtTN5A69zJJNg-Bg',sig:'MCIRu_8C7TCxvNR-AG3fHK_AOus39VMJ8Y2uz5T2dxg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1458141800',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Filip Krajinovic vs Andrey Rublev<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: Krajinovic 3-2 Rublev<\/p>\n<p>Although Krajinovic leads the head-to-head, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2021\/01\/23\/andrey-rublev-rising-star\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Rublev is a clear favorite<\/a> here. He hasn&#8217;t had the best start to the season and his last two weeks have been very disappointing to say the least, but he&#8217;s a consistent top 10 player who&#8217;s extremely prolific at ATP 500 level. He&#8217;s actually the defending champion at this tournament and will be hoping to go back to back this week.<br \/>\n<strong>Prediction:<\/strong> Rublev in 2<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"V1VBB-oqSPJbPnWP7WTjFQ\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1468850188\" 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:'V1VBB-oqSPJbPnWP7WTjFQ',sig:'Qe5YrSn-4iPgdsMkcLps4_Rr3a5gvjtM01zGLCiDOsQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1468850188',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Alexander Zverev vs Jiri Lehecka<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Lehecka 1-0 Zverev<\/p>\n<p>Both players had extremely close third set losses to Andy Murray last week in Doha, with Lehecka&#8217;s probably stinging even more considering all the match points he had and the stage of the tournament. Lehecka is having a very good season while Zverev has been struggling after his injury, but the German was a top 3 player in the world for a reason and has been showing signs of improvement. With Lehecka still reeling from the disappointment of last week, Zverev has every chance to notch a very important win here.<br \/>\n<strong>Prediction:<\/strong> Zverev in 3<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Day 1 at the ATP event in Dubai will feature a lot of exciting action. While world #1 Novak Djokovic and recent Rotterdam and Dubai champion Daniil Medvedev won&#8217;t be in action yet, there&#8217;ll still be plenty of top level players in action, including recent Australian Open quarterfinalists Jiri Lehecka and Andrey Rublev as well [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1742,"featured_media":55217,"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":[85,15615,3970,15508,511,15413,4849,12813,4657,2203,15455,13325,17201,12842,17009,2373,2369],"class_list":["post-55214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-alexander-zverev-predictions","tag-alexei-popyrin","tag-alexei-popyrin-predictions","tag-andrey-rublev","tag-andrey-rublev-predictions","tag-atp-dubai-predictions","tag-atp-picks","tag-atp-predictions","tag-filip-krajinovic","tag-filip-krajinovic-predictions","tag-jiri-lehecka","tag-jiri-lehecka-predictions","tag-pavel-kotov","tag-pavel-kotov-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55214","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\/1742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}