{"id":55967,"date":"2023-04-05T14:50:21","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T18:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=55967"},"modified":"2023-04-05T14:50:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T18:50:21","slug":"atp-marrakech-day-4-predictions-musetti-gaston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/04\/05\/atp-marrakech-day-4-predictions-musetti-gaston\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Marrakech Day 4 Predictions Including Lorenzo Musetti vs Hugo Gaston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the fourth day at the ATP tournament in Marrakech. There are plenty of exciting match-ups as early as the round of 16 with Botic Van De Zandschulp and Lorenzo Musetti looking to find some form against Christopher O&#8217;Connell and Hugo Gaston, respectively. As always at LWOT, we&#8217;ve tried to predict the outcomes of these early rounds.<\/p>\n<h2>ATP Marrakech Day 4 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Alexandre Muller vs Francesco Passaro<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: Passaro 1-0 Muller<\/h4>\n<p>If you&#8217;re going to excel on clay, you either need some exceptional weaponry or the endurance (and accompanying rally temperament) of a marathon runner. Alexandre Muller just about has the tools to keep himself afloat on a hard-court but his game is less suited to this surface.<\/p>\n<p>Francesco Passaro fits that mould more so than the Frenchman. He has plenty of variety to keep himself alive on defence and his shots should outweigh Muller&#8217;s in these conditions. There&#8217;s not a massive gap between the two players but we&#8217;re giving the edge to Passaro.<br \/>\nPrediction:\u00a0<em>Passaro in 3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"XvM1BdmmRelbhSZ6S1ACXw\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1440564390\" 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:'XvM1BdmmRelbhSZ6S1ACXw',sig:'oAnx_DhGlw4pPMt1l4_OoWDn7P_i_sYPuOLGFze7-EM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1440564390',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Botic Van De Zandschulp vs Christopher O&#8217;Connell<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: O&#8217;Connell 1-0 Van De Zandschulp<\/h4>\n<p>Signs of Botic Van De Zandschulp&#8217;s injury from Indian Wells seem to have disappeared. Wins over (an albeit under-par) Casper Ruud and Alexei Popyrin in Miami put that to rest along with a decent performance against Emil Ruusuvuori. Nonetheless, he&#8217;s looked less confident than last year at times on the court.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2019\/10\/13\/australian-christopher-oconnell-up-to-13-tennis-finals-for-the-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Christopher O&#8217;Connell&#8217;s recent form<\/a> isn&#8217;t particularly inspiring but he&#8217;s played the majority of the last 52 weeks on hard-courts. The Aussie&#8217;s heavy one-hander makes him far more of a threat on a clay-court&#8211;whilst Van De Zandschulp&#8217;s forehand is heavy enough itself to tide him by on the surface, he loses some zip from his otherwise effective first-serve. The change in surface makes this one very close, so much so that we&#8217;ll back the underdog by a whisker.<br \/>\nPrediction: <em>O&#8217;Connell in 3.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"F1rlRl23RApxH2h6Z-2X3g\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1455388188\" 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:'F1rlRl23RApxH2h6Z-2X3g',sig:'NDUnLOzPOGqunKq7WvYn_NaBHBoDKZaSJDl9jSrkrUo=',w:'594px',h:'377px',items:'1455388188',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Pavel Kotov vs Benjamin Bonzi<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: First Tour-level meeting<\/h4>\n<p>Benjamin Bonzi often goes under the radar. His talent is undeniable, he\u2019s just a little too short to be a serve-bot and he\u2019s nothing groundbreaking off the return. Still, the level he brings to the court can be exceptionally tough to live for non-ATP players \u2014 he\u2019s won 28 of his last 33 matches against players ranked outside the Top 100.<\/p>\n<p>Though Pavel Kotov is close to breaking that ranking barrier, he\u2019s on the outskirts of the game\u2019s elite for a reason. It may be anybody\u2019s point during rally but it\u2019ll be far easier for the languid Frenchman to roll on serve.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Bonzi in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Lorenzo Musetti vs Hugo Gaston<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: 1-1<\/h4>\n<p>Hugo Gaston is playing some of his best tennis for a while, stringing together wins against Federico Delbonis and Jan-Lennard Struff, whilst Lorenzo Musetti is getting close to his worst run of form since he joined the tour.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s assume form makes them about even in terms of base-level going into the match. Match-up-wise, Gaston&#8217;s drop-shot won&#8217;t be the most effective&#8211;Musetti&#8217;s one-hander is <em>heavy<\/em> and difficult to execute off of plus the Italian&#8217;s touch will give him the option of feeling his way out of a tricky situation in the forecourt. Gaston&#8217;s serve won&#8217;t give him many opportunities to exploit the Musetti backhand return either. It&#8217;ll probably be close but this looks like a good opportunity for Musetti to notch a quality win against a quality opponent.<br \/>\nPrediction:\u00a0<em>Musetti in 3.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the fourth day at the ATP tournament in Marrakech. There are plenty of exciting match-ups as early as the round of 16 with Botic Van De Zandschulp and Lorenzo Musetti looking to find some form against Christopher O&#8217;Connell and Hugo Gaston, respectively. As always at LWOT, we&#8217;ve tried to predict the outcomes of these [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3704,"featured_media":55972,"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":[13556,16824,5362,5287,10889,15823,9553,15938,9279,15946,17530,17612,10391,15985,10332,15491,12842,17009,2373,2369],"class_list":["post-55967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-alexandre-muller","tag-alexandre-muller-predictions","tag-atp-grand-prix-hassan-ii-predictions","tag-atp-marrakech-predictions","tag-benjamin-bonzi","tag-benjamin-bonzi-predictions","tag-botic-van-de-zandschulp","tag-botic-van-de-zandschulp-predictions","tag-christopher-oconnell","tag-christopher-oconnell-predictions","tag-francesco-passaro","tag-francesco-passaro-predictions","tag-hugo-gaston","tag-hugo-gaston-predictions","tag-lorenzo-musetti","tag-lorenzo-musetti-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\/55967","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\/3704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}