ATP Tournament in Eastbourne, 2nd Round, Wednesday, 28.06.2023
After Miomir Kecmaovic and Aleksandar Vukic won their respective opening matches at the ATP Tournament in Eastbourne, the two first round winners will now meet directly in Round 2 on Wednesday.
The Australian and the Serb made their grass court debuts a few weeks ago and look increasingly confident on the green surface.
Why I believe that the underdog Vukic will walk off the court as the winner in the end I reveal in my Kecmanovic Vukic tip.
For Miomir Kecmanovic, his first grass court match in 2023 was anything but successful: a good a fortnight ago in Hertogenbosch, the Eastern European had no chance against Milos Raonic. Raonic celebrated his comeback after a long injury break and won in two sets 6:3 and 6:4.
A week later, Kecmanovic also paid a lesson when he faced Cameron Norrie in the first round of the ATP tournament in Queens. The 41st ranked player in the world lost 4:6 and 6:7 against the US-American, but showed a slight improvement in form.
On Monday, Kecmanovic finally won his first match on grass in 2023 against China’s Yibing Wu. In a double tie-break thriller, Kecmanovic held his nerve and walked off the court as the first round winner with 7:6 and 7:6.
However, Kecmanovic still cannot build on his good performances from 2022 and therefore has at most an outsider’s chance of winning the ATP title in Eastbourne.
Kecmanovic’s overall record in 2023 remains sobering despite his recent success against Wu: the 23-year-old has only won 16 of his 33 matches, which means he has lost more matches than he has won in this calendar year.
In mid-April, Kecmanovic was already well on his way to normal form when he reached the final of the ATP tournament in Estoril on clay and only lost to Rune.
However, the Serb was unable to build on this success, as Kecmanovic only managed to win 2 of his last 9 matches.
According to the bookmakers, a win for the Eastern European does not seem unlikely. With odds of 1.50, the bookmakers send Kecmanovic into the race as favourite.
In view of the Australian’s recent strong performances, the odds seem a bit too high to me. After all, Vukic has won all of his last three grass court matches – and played some really good tennis in the process.
In the two qualifying matches for the ATP tournament in Eastbourne, the 27-year-old already showed that he is a force to be reckoned with. Vukic won more than confidently against Arthur Fery with 6:1 and 6:4.
The world number 91 was equally strong against the Tunisian Skander Mansouri. He did not give the African the slightest chance at 6:2 and 6:2.
Vukic showed his best performance on grass in 2023 recently in the first round match when he surprisingly beat Brandon Nakashima. In a nerve-racking and energy-sapping match, Vukic emerged victorious after three tie-breaks with 6:7, 7:6 and 7:6.
Of course, this victory must have cost him a lot of energy, but in view of the fact that he was able to regenerate for 48 hours afterwards, the first-round thriller should not be a negative factor for the upcoming match.
On the contrary: such a victory can possibly release enormous forces, Vukic will certainly not lack self-confidence on Wednesday
The duel should not be a foregone conclusion for either of the two players, in fact I can imagine that the match will only be decided in the third set.
Should it come to that, then mental strength and stamina will decide the outcome of the match in the end. It is particularly interesting that Kecmanovic won only 30% of the decisive sets, while Vukic won 66.6%.
Both players, however, have not met each other once so far and are not necessarily considered grass court experts. Kecmanovic has won 14 of his 29 matches on the green, Vukic eight times in 14 matches on grass.
In the statistics for the first and second serve as well as the break points won, both players do not take much from each other, which also speaks for a close pairing.
Unlike Aleksandar Vukic, Miomir Kecmanovic has already won a major title on the ATP Tour in his career: In September 2020, the Serb eliminated Yannick Hanfmann in Kitzbühel on clay.
Incidentally, the winner of this match would meet the winner between Gregoire Barrere and Nicolas Jarry in the quarter-finals.
The upcoming match should be taken seriously by the two players not only because of the prize money, because the tournament in Eastbourne is also the last test before the highlight at Wimbledon.
Vukic, in particular, looks as if he has got used to the surface after the first six grass court matches in 2023. Kecmanovic is still having problems adjusting in one place or another, but he already got rid of most of them against Wu.
Kecmaonovic and Vukic both had to fight enormously to get into the 2nd round and I expect nothing else this Wednesday. A high-risk bet, for example on “over 2.5 sets”, is therefore certainly possible in my opinion.
In the end, however, I have decided on a different betting option and am taking an even bigger risk. My tennis tip is: Aleksandar Vukic wins against Miomir Kecmanovic!
