{"id":65571,"date":"2024-04-01T00:29:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T04:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=65571"},"modified":"2024-04-01T00:29:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T04:29:00","slug":"atp-marrakech-day-1-predictions-kotov-vs-benchetrit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/04\/01\/atp-marrakech-day-1-predictions-kotov-vs-benchetrit\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Marrakech Day 1 Predictions Including Pavel Kotov vs Elliot Benchetrit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ATP Marrakech in Morocco begins the spring clay court season on the ATP World Tour, and day 1 features three main draw matches in addition to a host of final round qualifiers that feature former top level players David Goffin and Fabio Fognini, both of whom fall outside of the ATP&#8217;s top 100 rankings currently but should still be good enough to reach the main draw of the tournament.<\/p>\n<h3>Pavel Kotov vs Elliot Benchetrit<\/h3>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1901266843\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1901266843?et=FoFcYRlCSGlV0YQDcJyLEg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=d_pxoFaoaePYeV3IMGAoV0EBz1Y5MrHHFp5qU7g0CCk=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Benchetrit won their only meeting but that was quite some time ago, the French born player now represents Morocco and has home support in this matchup. He did get a wild card but he hasn&#8217;t made an impact at even the Challenger Tour level since 2021 when he won 7 Challenger level matches. Kotov had a career year last year, breaking onto the ATP tour, now he&#8217;s 4-7 playing a full ATP schedule this year. The Russian isn&#8217;t a world beater yet but he&#8217;s the more trusted player in this matchup. <strong>Kotov in 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Luca Van Assche vs Jaume Munar<\/h3>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1981896890\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1981896890?et=kCfxd8t3Rg5lb7kcxt8Dsw&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=fdlF3e5eO65bINSJJqO-LR81FE6vdJEk31wSOEcbGF0=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Van Assche edged Munar to start the season, he has 5 ATP level wins this year after\u00a0 a record 12 last season. Munar is a pedestrian 6-8 on the season, he&#8217;s shown prowess on clay in the past and did reach the quarters in Santiago some weeks back. This looks like a competitive matchup, I&#8217;ll take the Spaniard to get revenge for their past meeting in a close match. <strong>Munar in 3<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Mariano Navone vs Aziz Dougaz<\/h3>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2031360695\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2031360695?et=VWW9n1kaRUZg2ddhQXJM9A&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=3BG35OuBUw3o03x3E2VEZ_CPhh5aDmxIXIZI3Aw21YM=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Navone is at a career high ranking of #59, achieved after he reached the Rio ATP final as a qualifier in a surprise run. The Argentine certainly has the skills and comfort level on clay and would try to seize on what is a weak field to make another run at the ATP level. Dougaz is a journeyman but he did post a 24-28 ATP Challenger Tour record last year and has shown some improvements in his game. The younger Navone is the one everyone is talking about heading into this match though. <strong>Navone in 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: <em>Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ATP Marrakech in Morocco begins the spring clay court season on the ATP World Tour, and day 1 features three main draw matches in addition to a host of final round qualifiers that feature former top level players David Goffin and Fabio Fognini, both of whom fall outside of the ATP&#8217;s top 100 rankings currently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1442,"featured_media":55212,"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":[5284,5287,12813,4657,41968,41969,6250,17486,2397,15596,16712,18325,17817,41890,12842,17009,2373,2369],"class_list":["post-65571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-atp-marrakech","tag-atp-marrakech-predictions","tag-atp-picks","tag-atp-predictions","tag-aziz-dougaz","tag-aziz-dougaz-predictions","tag-elliot-benchetrit","tag-elliot-benchetrit-predictions","tag-jaume-munar","tag-jaume-munar-predictions","tag-luca-van-assche","tag-luca-van-assche-predictions","tag-mariano-navone","tag-mariano-navone-predictions","tag-pavel-kotov","tag-pavel-kotov-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65571","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\/1442"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}