The second round of the cinch Championships concludes on Thursday when the four remaining matches take place on the Centre Court at Queens Club as the quarter final line up at the ATP 500 event is finalised.
We saw some good tennis on Wednesday with the shocks continuing to come along and it will be interesting to see whether that continues in the four matches on Thursday or whether the cream rises to the top now.
Alejandro Tabilo vs Tommy Paul
The opening match on the schedule on Thursday sees the Chilean rising star Alejandro Tabilo looking to make it through to the quarter finals at Queens for the first time when he goes up against the fifth seed Tommy Paul.
These two will be meeting for the first time in this match with Paul the favourite to come through and I think that is fair enough. To be fair to Tabilo, he looked better on the grass in his first round win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina than I thought he would do but I still think he is going to need to find more to get the better of a Tommy Paul who has been pretty good on all surfaces for the last year or two. Paul had no real issues in overcoming Sebastian Baez in the first round and I think he’ll come through here but we’re too early in the grass season for me to be backing short prices.
Carlos Alcaraz vs Jack Draper
Usually the pick of the matches for a day would be the third one on the schedule but with the England football match kicking off at five it has been bumped up the order which means that the defending champion Carlos Alcaraz continues his title defence against the Stuttgart winner Jack Draper in the second match of Thursday.
Alcaraz looked like he was going to cruise to an opening win as he began his title defence against Francisco Cerundolo when he eased to the first set but the Argentine actually served for the second one before he fell apart to allow the French Open champion to progress. Draper arrived in top form after his win in Stuttgart and had no problems in coming through his first game and you sense on this surface that the Briton has the tools to trouble Alcaraz. I would expect the Spaniard to improve on a first round performance which was his first game on grass since the Wimbledon final. This has all the hallmarks of a pearler of a match. There is an argument that Draper is value at the prices but the variety in the Alcaraz game might just see him sneak through.
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Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard vs Billy Harris
We have an unseeded clash in the third game on the schedule on Thursday when the British wildcard Billy Harris looks to continue the best run he has had in an ATP 500 event when he meets the French qualifier Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard for a place in the quarter final.
Both of these men would be considered surprise quarter finalists but Harris has shown some good form on the grass already this season and his win over Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the first round will have given him more confidence, even if the Argentine is like a fish out of water on the grass. Mpetshi Perricard had a good win over Ben Shelton in the previous round and is probably more used to the big crowds and arenas such as the Centre Court at Queens so I would probably favour the French player in this match but I can’t say I’m keen to rush in at the prices so I’ll leave this one alone.
Brandon Nakashima vs Lorenzo Musetti
The last of the second round matches sees two men who have started the grass court season brightly meeting when Brandon Nakashima takes on the Italian player Lorenzo Musetti for a place in a quarter final where whoever wins will be the highest ranked player in that last eight contest.
This will be the first time that these two men meet but they nearly didn’t have to because Nakashima was no guarantee to beat Dan Evans in the previous round. There were signs that he was just beginning to turn things around having won the second set but Evans took a tumble early in the third and couldn’t continue. Musetti looked like he was going to be making a swift exit in the first round when he lost the first set to Alex de Minaur in no time at all but the Italian needs a lot of credit for the way he dug out, found a way into the contest and then in the end came out on top in it. That win for Musetti feels like a really good bit of form and when you add it to his run in Stuttgart last week where he lost out in the semi-final to a very strong Matteo Berrettini he probably should be a little shorter for this match than he is. Nakashima has had a good season at the lower levels but there is enough variety in the Musetti game to be a threat on grass and I’ll take him here.
Tips
Back L.Musetti to beat B.Nakashima for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Betfair
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