Third Round Matches to be played on Thursday:-
Top op the draw
1 Rafael Nadal vs Alexei Popyrin
5 Alexander Sverev vs Daniel Evans
3 Dominic Thiem vs Alec de Minaur
6 Andre Rublev vs John Isner
Bottom of the Draw
Aslan Karadsev vs Alexander Bublik
4 Stephano Tsitsipas vs Casper Ruud
8 Matteo Berrettini vs Frederico Delbonis
2 Danill Medvedev vs 16 Cristian Garin
Based on performances thus far in tennis worldwide - inclusive performances in this series - the highlighted players are likely to win.
Nadal vs Popyrin
Popyrin is another of the youngsters that showed improvement in form this year, but Nadal will be too difficult to beat, His win against Sinner was a surprise though, Nadal will definitely beat him with ease.
Sverev vs Avens
Evans put in some good performances this year - the best of which was to send Djokovic packing in Monte Carlo in Round 2, That could be misleading though since Djokovic wanting to return to form in clay decamped to Belgrade to play in a minor tournament where he lost against Karatesv in the semi, Sverev thus far this year was in good form and won the Mexican Open beating Tsitsipas in the final. Sverev will have to be in top form - but he is the defiinte favorite to beat Avens
Thiem vs De Minaur
Thiem was hampered by injury this year and did not do well enough in tournaments played this year,, However, he showed no sign of the injury in the Round 2 match, De Minaur is another youngster showing signs of career progress, but definitely not a world beater,
Rublev vs Isner
Rublev whose performance against Paul on Tuesday was lousy but he did win the match in the end. If that Tuesday match performance is repeated Isner is the likely winner, Rublev beat Nadal less than a month ago in Monte Carlo, but was not up to his normal performance standards since. On the other side Bautista-Agut was lousy in his round 2 match - but came extremely close to beating Isner yesterday and in fact had a match point against him, but lost in the end, Bautista-Agut's performances in recent tournaments against Rublev showed the latter player to be the better of the two.
Karatsev vs Bublik
Karatsev was the real surprise package this year, He was a qualifier in the Aussie Open and played Djokovic in the semi - where the latter did not have it going his way at times, but he did beat Karatsev in the semi, Karatsev went on to win the Dubai Open and he goit hos revenhe when he beat Djokovic in the Belgrade Open, Bobliok never played ion games where opposition was as strong as in matches like the case s with Karatsev, so Karatsev is the potential winner here
Tsitsipas vs Ruud
Tsitsipas is the top performer this year in tournaments . He is meeting one of the most promising young guns coming through at present - but he should be able to beat Ruud on current form.
Berrettini vs Delbomis
How Delbonis - a qualifier - managed to get through to this Round is a mystery, Un ant event he managed to beat Schwartzman us Round 2 0 bit the latter was no food in recent tournaments, If Berrettini cannot beat him - he does not belong in the tournament.
Demetrev vs Garin
Demetrev had a Covid 19 problem in the past month and said he was very sick for a couple of days - but recovered and was good enough in the Round 1 match to beat Davidovich Fokina - one of the best young guns in tennis, Garin is a clay court specialist, Demetrev said he struggles on clay and it will be a hard match. Whether his "struggles" statement is in fact true is debatable. Be it as it may, Garin - despite the clay court specialist reputation is definitely not in the class of Davidovich Fokina an Demetrev should be the winner here.
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