Tommy Paul 2.00, Frances Tiafoe 2.00
Second round. Due to start around 7:30 pm
Tiafoe won their only previous meeting. That was in a hard court Challenger in Lexington, USA. He won in straight sets.
Much stronger overall results for Paul in the last 12 months. . His hard court results are also stronger. He has won 79% of matches in the last 12 months compared to 44% for Tiafoe. If we only compare hard court matches in main tour tournaments Paul leads 70% to 42% matches won.
Paul started the season with a semi final in Adelaide. he came through the qualifying rounds that week. He backed that up with a third round finish at the Australian Open. This week he took on Lucky Loser Daniel Elahi Galen in the first round and beat him in straight sets. He faced just 2 break points and saved both of them.
Tiafoe has won 2 of his 6 hard court matches in 2020. To be fair he has had some tough draws. In Doha he faced in from Marton Fucsovics losing in 3. The following week it was The talented Mikael Ymer in Auckland and he also lost in 3 sets. His luck didn’t improve in Melbourne and it was Daniil Medvedev on the other side of the net. The Russian won that in 4 sets.
Tiafoe dropped down to Challenger level in Newport Beach and made the second round after beating 207 ranked Alejandro Tabilo in 2 sets. Denis Istomin then beat him in straight sets as huge underdog. Tiafoe did find some better form indoors in the Dallas Challenger 2 weeks ago. He reached the quarter final where he lost as favourite to Denis Kudla in 2 sets.
Tiafoe will find some better form soon but tonight I have to go with Tommy Paul to win. Back him around 2.20 to 2.30.
