{"id":56188,"date":"2023-04-18T15:57:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T19:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=56188"},"modified":"2023-04-18T15:57:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T19:57:33","slug":"atp-banja-luka-day-3-predictions-djokovic-van-assche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/04\/18\/atp-banja-luka-day-3-predictions-djokovic-van-assche\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Banja Luka Day 3 Predictions Including Novak Djokovic vs Luca Van Assche"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The ATP Srpska Open in Banja Luka has had a few delays but for Day 3 we&#8217;re predicting the round of 16 matches due to go ahead. We have a high-ranking encounter between Laslo Djere and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/08\/21\/borna-coric-cincinnati\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Borna Coric<\/a>, what promises to be a great match between Alexei Popyrin and Alex Molcan and question marks over Novak Djokovic against young hot shot Luca Van Assche.<\/p>\n<h2>ATP Banja Luka Day 4 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Laslo Djere vs Borna Coric<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: Djere 2-1 Coric<\/h4>\n<p>The Borna Coric we saw win the Cincinnati Masters has gone missing. There have been hints of some form here and there but it&#8217;s a far cry from the Isner-like serves that took him to a first Masters title.<\/p>\n<p>Laslo Djere should absolutely take advantage. Coric isn&#8217;t as comfortable on the surface where forehands dominate and Djere is extremely tough to breakdown, particularly at a close-to-home clay event. This is an easy pick for us.<br \/>\nPrediction:\u00a0<em>Djere in 2.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"YRBY7Cq2R9dU2CgUbaQpyw\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1469084898\" 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:'YRBY7Cq2R9dU2CgUbaQpyw',sig:'H61vTzbfDL0ra8YAaTgAaqDFr00vVB5kgE2S7n1fbPk=',w:'594px',h:'416px',items:'1469084898',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Alexei Popyrin vs Alex Molcan<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: First meeting<\/h4>\n<p>Both <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/05\/02\/marian-vajda-alex-molcan\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Alex Molcan<\/a> and Alexei Popyrin scored great wins against form players so could both be considered to be in fine fickle. This is the most wonderful time of the year for Molcan&#8211;he has a phenomenal record on this surface with his repeatable, ferocious lefty strokes.<\/p>\n<p>Popyrin is just getting started this year and will be up for the fight. Molcan&#8217;s ability to expose the slight backhand weakness of the Aussie will be a key difference, however.<br \/>\nPrediction:\u00a0<em>Molcan in 3.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"W-jgxmKaQsJLba_tstfMBw\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1476340204\" 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:'W-jgxmKaQsJLba_tstfMBw',sig:'D5LCMNB_9wWamcIRciKZJmuCbWrtmAn52f6CmN1CEY0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1476340204',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Novak Djokovic vs Luca Van Assche<\/h4>\n<h4>Head-to-head: First meeting<\/h4>\n<p>Looks like Luca Van Assche&#8217;s back-to-back Challenger titles were no fluke. The Frenchman is certainly a talent, showcasing his fiery game in a high-quality encounter with Stan Wawrinka.<\/p>\n<p>It really comes down to how the World #1 is playing, of course. He has historically taken a while to get going during the clay season and, with a potential elbow injury threatening, his form is looking very ropey. He&#8217;ll probably find a way against the inexperienced 18-year-old but there will be plenty of scares along the way.<br \/>\nPrediction:\u00a0<em>Djokovic in 3.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ATP Srpska Open in Banja Luka has had a few delays but for Day 3 we&#8217;re predicting the round of 16 matches due to go ahead. We have a high-ranking encounter between Laslo Djere and Borna Coric, what promises to be a great match between Alexei Popyrin and Alex Molcan and question marks over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3704,"featured_media":56192,"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":[13458,15883,3970,15508,18756,346,17408,4775,15498,16712,18325,22,15556,18759,2373,2369],"class_list":["post-56188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-alex-molcan","tag-alex-molcan-predictions","tag-alexei-popyrin","tag-alexei-popyrin-predictions","tag-atp-banja-luka-predictions","tag-borna-coric","tag-borna-coric-predictions","tag-laslo-djere","tag-laslo-djere-predictions","tag-luca-van-assche","tag-luca-van-assche-predictions","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-novak-djokovic-predictions","tag-srpska-open-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56188","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=56188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}