The first round of the Rothesay International will conclude on Tuesday as the second day of the ATP Eastbourne tournament is played out with plenty of attention on those involved as they finalise their Wimbledon preparations.
We have seven matches in total across the grounds at Devonshire Park on Tuesday and although we have to wait until Wednesday for the four top seeds to enter the tournament there is plenty of good action in store for us.
Centre Court
We have two matches in the ATP draw on the Centre Court on Tuesday and it is the leading British player at the competition in Cameron Norrie who will be first up. He goes up against the Finnish player Emil Ruusuvuori for a place in the round of 16. Two women’s matches follow them onto the court before the last of the men’s games take place to round off the action on the main show court. That sees the eighth seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina going up against Lorenzo Sonego in what looks to be the pick of the first round matches.
Court 1
Two more matches from the ATP draw take place over on Court 1 where we have to wait for a women’s match to be completed before the first men’s clash. When it comes it sees the British wildcard Liam Broady returning from a prolonged period on the sidelines when he takes on the qualifier Yoshihito Nishioka. Another Japanese player is involved in the other men’s game which follows that one onto the court when the former US Open finalist Kei Nishikori takes on the sixth seed Mariano Navone.
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Outside Courts
Court 2 and Court 5 are the other places to see matches from the ATP draw on Tuesday. There is just the one match on Court 2 which is a fair way down the schedule as Arthur Rinderknech meets Flavio Cobolli. Over on Court 5 it is the first two matches on show that are from the men’s side of things. Thiago Seyboth Wild will be looking to make progress in the first one when he goes up against the qualifier James McCabe before Miomir Kecmanovic and Zhizhen Zhang face off in a match which is probably worthy of a better stage.
Betting
I am a little surprised that Zhizhen Zhang is the outsider to get the better of Miomir Kecmanovic on Tuesday. In the early stages of his career the Serbian was efficient on grass but since the Covid year he has been very ordinary on the green stuff. He is 0-2 on it this season and just 5-11 in total since 2020 so his grass court prowess has gone missing. That isn’t the case for Zhang, who is enjoying a very productive time of it on the grass already this term.
He lost to a pair of tiebreaks in three sets against Dominik Koepfer in Stuttgart a couple of weeks ago but in Halle last week he won three matches including wins over Daniil Medvedev and Christopher Eubanks, the latter of whom won a grass court event last year and has a serve which could be a nightmare on this surface. He eventually lost to the champion Jannik Sinner in the semi-final but only went down 64 76 so he wasn’t disgraced by the world number one. Zhang’s ranking has improved all the time since 2020 and I expect that to keep happening here with a win over the Serbian player.
Tips
Back Z.Zhang to beat M.Kecmanovic for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
