The second round of the BNP Paribas Open draws to a close on Saturday when the bottom half of the draw plays down to the last 32 in the ATP Indian Wells tournament as another 16 seeds begin their Masters 1000 campaign.
We saw some big shocks on Friday and the seeded players will be out to ensure that there isn’t any repeat of that on Saturday but each of the seeds face a player who will know the conditions from the first round so there are some banana skins here.
Stadium 1
It is a day where we have three men’s matches on the main court and after a women’s match is played out the first game from the ATP draw will see the defending champion Carlos Alcaraz beginning his title defence against Quinten Halys. When they are done the day session concludes with a match between Novak Djokovic and Botic van de Zandschulp who was the beneficiary of Nick Kyrgios retiring in their first round meeting. We have to wait for the second match of the night session for the other men’s match as Gael Monfils goes up against Seb Korda in a clash which should deliver fireworks.
Stadium 2
That leaves us with just the two matches over on the second court on Saturday and to avoid scheduling with the main court the men’s games are in the first on the schedule of each session. We get underway with the former champion Taylor Fritz looking to move into the third round once again when he faces the Italian qualifier Matteo Gigante and then when the night session comes along the all-action Ben Shelton meets a Mariano Navone who might just enjoy the very slow conditions that come along with the darkness.
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Stadium 3
There are also two matches over on Stadium 3 for us to enjoy over the course of Saturday but we have to wait for three of the women’s games to be played out before they come along so it will be near enough the night session when these contests take place. The first seed on show is Grigor Dimitrov. He meets the improving Nuno Borges while in the other match Alex de Minaur gets his tournament underway when he takes on David Goffin who had a solid win over Lorenzo Sonego in the opening round.
Best of the Rest
There will be a lot of interest in the opening match on Stadium 4 on Saturday when Britain’s Jack Draper takes on the new sensation on the scene in Joao Fonseca in a match that has to be entertaining. The other two matches on that court should be worth a watch too with the in form Andrey Rublev and Hubert Hurkacz getting their campaigns underway as well while over on Stadium 5 we have a full slate of men’s games with Alejandro Tabilo, Francisco Cerundolo, Brandon Nakashima and Karen Khachanov the seeds on show. Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov are also on court.
Betting
After a dreadful Friday it is a little bit of a recovery mission for me on Saturday where I like two bets. The first is for Nuno Borges to get the better of Grigor Dimitrov. The Portuguese player won their only meeting which was at the Australian Open last season and you would have to think he has plenty going for him here. Dimitrov has retired from three of his last four matches so immediately there is a fitness concern over the Bulgarian but Borges has shown some good signs recently where it has taken Andrey Rublev and Felix Auger-Aliassime to beat him. Borges has already had a solid win over Arthur Rinderknech in this tournament and I think he’ll come through against Dimitrov too.
I’m not always one for betting on head-to-head records but it is hard to ignore the dominance that Alex de Minaur has over David Goffin. He leads it 6-0 and in that time the set count is 12-1. Goffin just doesn’t seem to have anything to trouble them Australian. To make matters worse, only three of the 12 sets de Minaur has won against the Belgian in the past has Goffin won four or more games. When you consider that the Aussie is playing some of the best tennis of his career it makes perfect sense to expect him to dominate once again and therefore under 20.5 games looks a solid play.
Tips
Back N.Borges to beat G.Dimitrov for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with William Hill
Back D.Goffin vs A.de Minaur – Under 20.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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