We have reached semi-final Saturday at the cinch Championships with both matches being played on the Centre Court at Queens Club in London in the afternoon, as we find out who will compete for the ATP 500 title in the final on Sunday.
We only have one seeded player left in the field after a week of shocks but while we might be lacking the big names in the semi-final, there is a huge opportunity for all four men from here on in so this will be a massive weekend for one of them.
Jordan Thompson vs Lorenzo Musetti
The opening semi-final of the tournament will be an Australian-Italian affair as Jordan Thompson goes in search of a place in the sixth grass court final of his career when he takes on Lorenzo Musetti, who is eyeing up a first title match on this surface.
Thompson would certainly deserve a place in the final given that he has taken out two of the seeds to have fallen this week. He opened up the tournament with a three set win over Holger Rune before he eased past Taylor Fritz in the quarter final. Musetti did take care of the second seed Alex de Minaur in the first round but I think it is fair to suggest that the draw has been kind for him since then. The form would side with Thompson but Musetti won their only previous meeting in Adelaide at the beginning of the year. My head says Thompson will win this but I fancy a close semi-final so at 4/5 I can leave him alone.
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Tommy Paul vs Sebastian Korda
The second semi-final will be an all-American affair when the one remaining seed left in the competition, Tommy Paul, goes up against his compatriot Sebastian Korda, who will be looking for a place in a second final in as many weeks.
Korda reached the final in Hertogenbosch last week where he went down to Alex de Minaur but if he wins this semi-final he will be the favourite to come out on top here at Queens. He has had to come through a couple of tight battles in the last two days though with Grigor Dimitrov and Rinky Hijikata both taking him to three sets. The former was understandable. The latter was more of a surprise. Paul also had to come through a deciding set in his quarter final but he outlasted Jack Draper in the end and will hope to do the same here. This is the second meeting in as many weeks for this pair as they met in Holland and Korda won 64 62. With that in mind, I’m a little surprised that Korda is the outsider here. He was a semi-finalist here last year as well so he has bags of grass court form in the books whereas I’m still not convinced it is a surface that Paul completely enjoys. I can’t avoid the odds against on Korda, who actually leads their head-to-head 4-1 overall.
Tips
Back S.Korda to beat T.Paul for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
