The first round of the ATP Indian Wells comes to a close on day two of the BNP Paribas Open as those unseeded players who are yet to get their opening Masters 1000 campaign underway do so over the course of Thursday.
We saw some excellent action on Wednesday and with us now just a day away from the seeded players coming into the tournament we should expect the quality to continue to rise over the course of Thursday.
Stadium 1
Two men’s matches take place on the main court on Thursday, one in the day session and one in the night session. We have to wait for a couple of women’s matches to be completed before the first of those men’s matches come along. When it does Andy Murray will begin another quest for a maiden Indian Wells title when he takes on Tomas Martin Etcheverry. The women open the night session but when they are done the home wildcard Jack Sock will look to make progress when he goes up against Gregoire Barrere.
Stadium 2
There are three men’s matches on the second court on Thursday and the first two of them come straight out of the gate and include a couple of big names. The first of those matches sees the former US Open champion Stan Wawrinka going up against the qualifier Aleksandar Vukic before Fabio Fognini will start his quest for another Masters 1000 title when he takes on the home man Ben Shelton. We then have to wait until the night session for the third game to come along. When it does the former winner Dominic Thiem will go up against Adrian Mannarino.
Stadium 3
We have three matches to enjoy from the men’s draw over on the third court and they form the first three matches of the day. We should get off to a competitive start when Mackenzie McDonald meets Filip Krajinovic before Thanasi Kokkinakis looks to build on his qualification when he meets the home wildcard Brandon Holt. When they are done a third American takes to this court when J.J. Wolf meets the Hungarian veteran Marton Fucsovics for a place in the second round of the competition.
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Best of the Rest
There isn’t a huge amount more matches taking place around the grounds and most of what is will happen on Stadium 5 where every match comes from the men’s draw. Jack Draper is one of the players in action in that part of the venue while Guido Pella is another. He is involved in a South American battle with Thiago Monteiro. Richard Gasquet gets another season of Masters 1000 tennis underway on this court as well while the lucky loser Alexei Popyrin rounds off the action.
Betting
I’m a little bit surprised that Adrian Mannarino isn’t a slightly warmer favourite against Dominic Thiem than he actually is. I don’t know whether some of that is down to the fact Thiem has won all eight of the completed matches they have played but seven of those were before Thiem had all of his injury issues, and the form of the Austrian since then has been completely different to what it was prior to them.
He goes into this match off the back of just one win in his last 11 outings stretching back to last season and while he has gone down to some decent opponents, there are one or two losses on his CV that shouldn’t be there. You can’t really argue that Mannarino is near the top of his game but he has been winning matches recently and I do think that is important. There is a feeling that conditions might suit Thiem by the time this match goes onto court but Mannarino takes the ball early and that might negate that. I’ll go with the French player here.
Tips
Back A.Mannarino to beat D.Thiem for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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