Qatar Open in Doha, quarter-finals, Thursday, 23/02/2023
Quarterfinals in Doha! Christopher O’Connell has a mammoth task ahead of him on Thursday with Daniil Medvedev. The tennis match is scheduled for 16:00.
For the Russian, Wednesday’s win over Liam Broady (6-4, 6-3) was his first appearance at the Qatar Open. Can he now follow it up? My O’Connell Medvedev tip provides a prediction.
The month-long break for Daniil Medvedev after an early third-round exit at the Australian Open has done the world number eight good.
He made an impressive comeback by winning the 500 tournament in Rotterdam. Especially when looking at the manner. In each of the five rounds, Medvedev had to play players from the top 35 in the world.
He lost only two sets in total against Jannik Sinner, Grigor Dimitrov, Felix Auger Aliassime, Botic van de Zandschulp and against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
Three days after the final, he continued with the second round at the Qatar Open on Wednesday, beating Britain’s Broady 6-4, 6-3 in commanding fashion, but struggling every now and then with his own service game.
In total, the Briton had five break opportunities and made use of two of them. Medvedev, on the other hand, secured twice the number of breaks with six aces and one double fault.
His first serves came to 75%, a strong figure. He was able to convert 69% of his first-served balls into a point win.
Medvedev was also strong in the return. His opponent only put points on the scoreboard with 58 per cent with about every second first serve.
The Muscovite hit especially on Broady’s second serve, who could only use eight of 21 second serves for himself.
All in all, it was another strong performance by Medvedev with small weaknesses on his own serve. Now the Australian Christopher O’Connell is waiting.
The 94th ranked player in the world took out Spaniards Fernando Verdasco (6-1, 3-6, 6-0) and Roberto Bautista Agut (3-6, 7-6, 6-4).
The 28-year-old has had to play three of his last five matches over three sets. Should it also go over the full length against Medvedev, bet-at-home offers odds of 3.55.
The betting providers do not think this is very likely. For them, Medvedev is the clear favourite in this duel.
O’Connell’s performance was particularly impressive in the match against the world number 28, Bautista Agut. In total, the Australian, who reached his highest ever world ranking at the beginning of January, hit eleven aces against the Spaniard.
Like Medvedev, O’Connell also managed to serve 69 per cent of his first serves in the second round.
However, he allowed 13 break opportunities in the three-set match, resulting in four breaks. O’Connell secured exactly the same number of chances and successful breaks.
The balance in the match is also confirmed by the number of points won by both players. Each managed to score 103 of the 206 points played.
In any case, the score against Medvedev will not be that even. The Russian is not considered one of the best hard court players in the world for nothing.
This fact is also known to the betting providers, who give Medvedev 1.06 odds. An 8.20 is waiting for a win by O’Connell.
If one assumes a clear 2:0 for Medvedev, odds of 1.25 are offered, suitable odds for a combination betting slip.
Medvedev and O’Connell met once before in September 2020. At the US Open, the Russian was clearly in control of the match. 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 was the final result.
O’Connell is on a good path. After a run of form last year and a solid performance at the start of the year, the Australian has earned his best-ever ranking in the world rankings.
However, a much more demanding task now awaits him against Daniel Medvedev. In addition, the latter raised his level of play in the second set against Broady and got used to the conditions in Qatar.
I therefore see a clear 2:0 for Medvedev and, with 13 breaks already offered against Agut, no possibility for O’Connell to get into the tiebreak.
At Bet365, I can combine a 2:0 win for Medvedev and under 0.5 tiebreaks with the betting configurator.
