ATP Tournament in Dallas, Round of 16, Wednesday, 08.02.2023
After the Grand Slam is before the Grand Slam? Not quite, because before we get to Wimbledon, a few more months pass in our tennis tips. But of course the top stars don’t take that long a break.
In Dallas, the world number 8 will start, is seeded at position 1 and therefore clearly favoured at Bet3000 in his first match. Why I’m still betting on at least one close set, I’ll now reveal in my Fritz Sock tip!
He was the only one who came very close to beating Novak Djokovic at the ATP Finals! Taylor Fritz lost 6-7, 6-7 to the Djoker in the semi-finals, collecting a whopping six tiebreaks in the four games.
The 25-year-old had also set his sights high for the Australian Open, but failed to live up to his own expectations early on. Against Nikolos Bassilaschwilli, he still managed to advance in four sets, but then it was all over.
7-6, 6-7, 4-6, 7-6, 2-6 against Alexei Popyrin, what a disappointment! Winning two sets in a tiebreak against an opponent who was actually clearly inferior, that is by no means the claim of Fritz.
Will he now be able to benefit from being seeded at position 1 in Dallas? Fritz has actually had a long enough break since his Melbourne failure, now competes directly in the round of 16.
Opposite: Jack Sock, his compatriot. The two have already played each other five times, Fritz’s lead is quite narrow at 3:2. But: Sock already snatched the two victories in 2016, at the two Grand Slams on hard court in five sets each.
Fritz was not even 20 years old at the time. Since then, he has won the three other matches against Sock, and the two even met in Dallas last year. The favourite had no difficulties with a 6-1, 6-4 win.
With odds of 1.12 to 6.00, our betting providers are relatively optimistic that things will go the same way on Wednesday, even a 2:0 only manages 1.45. Jack Sock therefore naturally knows that he is the glaring underdog.
The world number 141 did not have to go through qualifying, but he has already played one match in the main draw. He won an incredibly close match against Ilya Ivashka 7-6, 4-6, 6-4.
18 break chances he allowed his opponent, was lucky that he could only use three. He also has to work on his ten double faults. For the 30-year-old, the rhythm is not quite back yet.
The Australian Open came too early and he only watched the action from the sofa. But he returned a little later in Cleveland at the Challenger, but with very limited success.
Sock lost 6-7, 4-6 to Alex Michelsen and will it be the same in Dallas as it was in 2022? At that time he had eliminated Oscar Otte, but was then eliminated by Taylor Fritz as already described.
My Fritz Sock Tip
Taylor Fritz is still searching for his form, what he showed at the Australian Open was actually not worthy of him. Even towards the end of 2022, he was conspicuous with many tiebreaks, could only finish a few matches clearly.
Against Jack Sock he is my favourite, but I trust the underdog to at least give Fritz a tough fight. Like he did against Ilya Ivashka. So I’ll go for a slightly riskier tip and say:
We’ll see at least a tiebreak!
