The first round of the ATP Miami Open concludes at the Hard Rock Stadium grounds in Florida on Thursday when the unseeded players in the bottom half of the draw take to the courts looking to set up a clash with a seeded player over the weekend.
We are 24 hours away from the seeds entering the competition but while we wait there are still a good blend of experienced household names and rising stars looking to pick up the win which will take them into the second round.
Stadium Court
It is the men who open up the action inside the stadium on Thursday as the first of two matches from the ATP draw take place right off the bat. That sees Cristian Garin looking to continue his return up the rankings. The Chilean had a good week at Indian Wells and will look to see off Marcos Giron to build on qualifying for this event. We have to wait until the night session for the other men’s match which sees the former US Open champion Dominic Thiem taking on Lorenzo Sonego, who is another who wants to climb the rankings again.
Grandstand
There are three men’s matches on the Grandstand on Thursday and they are the middle three games on the court. After a women’s match opens up the day it will be two Americans who battle it out in the opening men’s clash when Christopher Eubanks goes up against Denis Kudla. Another American competes in the following match when Mackenzie McDonald takes on the Colombian player Daniel Elahi Galan and then as we head towards the night session Richard Gasquet takes on the lucky loser Christopher O’Connell.
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Butch Buchholz
Three more matches from the men’s draw take place over on the Butch Buchholz court but we have to wait for a couple of women’s matches to be played out before the first of them comes along. When it does two qualifiers meet when Yosuke Watanuki goes up against Benoit Paire before Jason Kubler looks to make progress when he takes on Thiago Monteiro. The last of the three matches sees the wildcard Zizou Bergs going up against a Thanasi Kokkinakis who is on his second chance in the tournament after losing out to Benoit Paire in qualifying only to get a lucky loser spot.
Best of the Rest
Eight other matches take place on the outside courts around the grounds at the Hard Rock Stadium complex on Thursday. On Court 1 the promising Jiri Lehacka is in action while Adrian Mannarino is also on that court. Jordan Thompson beat Stefanos Tsitsipas in Indian Wells last week and he’ll look to set up a clash with Yoshihito Nishioka when he steps out onto Court 7 while Jaume Munar and Roberto Carballes Baena are among the players who will be in action on Court 5.
Betting
I’ll go with just the one bet over the course of Thursday and it comes quite early in the piece when Cristian Garin takes on Marcos Giron. I’m a little surprised that Garin isn’t a clearer favourite than what he is here because I believe his ceiling is a lot higher than that of Giron. Since the circuit came away from the eastern part of the world, Giron is 5-4 on the American hard courts and has only beaten one player in the top 50 in the world rankings in that time and even then Ben Shelton isn’t the most established player either.
Garin has slid right down the rankings but there have been signs recently that he is coming to the boil again. He made it to the last 16 in Indian Wells where Casper Ruud was among his victims and he has qualified here in Miami with a good win over Alejandro Tabilo in the final qualifying round. Garin is 10-3 on a hard court this season and is having comfortably his best campaign on this surface. He has only had two years where he has reached double figures for wins on a hard court and went on to win 12 matches on each occasion. With three quarters of the season left he’s going to breeze past that number. Giron’s numbers on a hard court are declining. He peaked with 39 wins in 2019 and since then his total hard court wins have been 23, 22 and 17 and he is 8-7 overall in 2023. The upside of Garin is enough to merit backing him at 5/6 against a Giron who hasn’t been past the second round in an outdoor hard court Masters 1000 event this decade.
Tips
Back C.Garin to beat M.Giron for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Coral
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