[Tennis- ATP Dubai] 2.3/ 14:00 B.Van De Zandschlup- A.Rublev

[Radu]

[Tennis- ATP Dubai] 2.3/ 14:00 B.Van De Zandschlup- A.Rublev

Rublev's 2023 season hasn't been that great. The top 6 in the world is currently 7-5 and all those matches were played in hard courts, his best surface. One thing that I need to recognize is that some of his wins were insane comebacks since he had to save 10 match points across three different fixtures including last week in Doha and here in Dubai on his 2nd round against Davidovich Fokina. The russian has an ultra agressive playstyle backed up by an amazing forehand but his decision making on the court sometimes can lead to a ton of unforced errors when things are not flowing.

Botic Van De Zandschulp has been capable of maintaining himself within the top 35 even when challenging some serve problems over the past two months but he was still able to secure at least one main draw win in all the tournaments he entered in 2023. I talked about this player on my previous play but he also likes to close out points quite fast even if he usually constructs the points a bit more cautiously than his opponent.

From what I can see Botic's recent wins have been against big hitters like Khachanov, Ivashka and Halys which tells me that he's not worried about playing against these type of players and Rublev is also one of them. On his last match Botic struggled a bit against a consistent grinder like Ymer and in Rotterdam he had no chance against another wall like Medvedev.

These two players faced each other two times with Botic leading the battle by 2-0 with one of those wins being played in Russia in 2021, Rublev's home country. I'm expecting Botic to have a close match here and I like a +3.5 handicap in the conditions of Dubai.

1 (handicap +3,5 gems) @1,85 Bwin

3:6 6:7