The ATP’s Nottingham tournament now flows into the second round and so do our tennis picks. This tournament started on Sunday and will end on Saturday, since Wimbledon is the next tournament, and the ATP Tour does not want to inconvenience its membership ahead of the ITF-governed major tournament at Wimbledon.
On Monday, we saw mostly expected results, although there were a lot of competitive matches. There were 13 matches on the men’s side and only five of them were straight-set results. All of the others went the distances. We saw Benjamin Becker, Mickhail Youzhny, Ernesto Escobedo, Dudi Sela, John Millman, MAlek Jaziri, Victor Estrella, Stephane Robert, Jiri Vesely, Frank Dancevic, Kyle Edmund and Ivan Dodig advance.
On Tuesday’s card, you will see the presence of several players who need to get in the work on grass this week. The elite players don’t have to scramble to play extra tournaments. They played last week and will now rest up for Wimbledon. Others, though, haven’t gotten much match play and need that right now. Which ones will win and get more match play later in the week? Here is a look at our tennis picks for the day.
Kevin Anderson vs. Ivan Dodig
There is no doubt that if you removed injuries from the equation, Anderson would be the clear favorite here. You might remember that a year ago, he took a two-seat lead on Novak Djokovic in the fourth round of Wimbledon before losing in five sets. This version of Anderson, though, isn’t able to play the way the 2015 incarnation did (and could). In 2016, Anderson has run into one injury after another. He has had to play challenger events to develop some consistency and avoid a lot of down time. Will that accumulated work pay off for Anderson here? It easily could – Anderson is a huge server, and he has gotten better at net over time. He is a natural grass-court player, as his 2015 match against Djokovic showed.
Yet, injuries are such a constant question that until an athlete conclusively shows he’s beyond them, skepticism remains the better attitude. Dodig is a decent player on tour. He probably doesn’t have to be spectacular to win this match, but he does need to be competent and able to avoid lapses on big points. As long as Dodig keeps his head, he should be able to finish off this victory. Take him with your tennis picks.
Pick: Dodig in three sets
Stephane Robert vs. Pablo Cuevas
This should be a highly interesting match, in that Cuevas is the No. 2 seed for the tournament and Robert is someone who earned his way into the main draw of this event by going through the qualifying rounds. What you can see from that point is that Robert has gotten a lot of match-play experience over the past few days. He can evidently handle grass. Cuevas is a clay-court specialist. He is not very strong on either grass or hardcourts. This is a match in which seedings and notes about qualifiers go out the window. One could legitimately call this a surprise if Cuevas wins, though that’s a point for debate. The line here is that while you should be cautious in general about this match, Robert does remain the better choice for your tennis picks.
Pick: Robert in three sets
Victor Estrella Burgos vs. Fernando Verdasco
This is a matchup in which you have to look at what Verdasco has done. He’s made a Wimbledon quarterfinal and has still shown that he can stand up to the rest of the ATP Tour. He is not as powerful as he once was, but he knows it and is still able to scare a good player every now and then. Estrella Burgos lacks a resume or a history Verdasco can match, which makes it hard to pick the underdog. Verdasco is past his prime and he’s not one of the best players on the Tour, but Burgos is far below him. Go with Verdasco for your tennis picks in this spot.
Pick: Verdasco in straight sets
