The two remaining quarter finals in the BNP Paribas Open take place on Friday when the ATP Indian Wells tournament finalises the semi-final line-up ahead of the business end of the latest Masters 1000 event over the weekend.
We saw a couple of upsets in the two quarter finals that were played out on Thursday and we have a couple of live outsiders on show against two of the established stars of the game to look forward to watching on Friday.
Nikoloz Basilashvili vs Stefanos Tsitsipas
Two men who have enjoyed conditions so far this week meet in the opening match of the two on Friday when the Georgian player Nikoloz Basilashvili takes on the number two seed Stefanos Tsitsipas for a spot in the semi-final.
Tsitsipas has had to come from a set down in his last two matches, for which he deserves a lot of credit given that he has been battling a cold during that time. Basilashvili had to come through a deciding set in his second match against Albert Ramos-Vinolas but he was more impressive in his last 16 win over Karen Khachanov in a performance where the power of his groundstrokes really shone through. I expect the Greek to win this but he clearly isn’t at 100% and at the very worst ‘Basil’ can make him work hard for his win. The Georgian has taken a set off Tsitsipas in their two previous meetings and if he does that again he can keep within 4.5 games of him. Even if he doesn’t he only needs to keep the sets close to cover this handicap. I’ll take the Georgian on that line.
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Taylor Fritz vs Alexander Zverev
The last of the quarter finals sees the one remaining home player in either singles draw in Taylor Fritz taking on the Olympic champion Alexander Zverev, who is looking to move to within two wins of successive Masters 1000 titles in America.
Zverev landed the crown in Cincinnati just prior to the US Open and he is three wins away from emulating that performance here in Indian Wells but he’s entitled to face a tough test against Fritz who is relishing playing in front of his own supporters once again after being deprived of the opportunity for so long due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Zverev was made to work hard in the opening two rounds of the tournament but he cruised past Gael Monfils in his latest match but Fritz hasn’t dropped a set so far and could be dangerous if he serves well. You would think this would be a battle of the serve but I’m still so so about Zverev’s second serve so this is a match I can leave alone.
Tips
Back N.Basilashvili (+4.5 games) to beat S.Tsitsipas for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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