We’re getting closer to the last Slam of the year but first we have a good tournament in Cincinnati to follow and we’ve already seen a few great matches. We’ll cover some previews of the event, here’s a look at two of today’s second-round matches, Taylor Fritz vs. Alex Michelsen and Joao Fonseca vs. Botic van de Zandschulp, with our predictions and best bets.
Taylor Fritz vs Alex Michelsen
Fritz opened his campaign with a bye as the 6th seed, while Michelsen booked his spot here with a routine 6-4, 6-4 win over Jesper de Jong. This is the third meeting between the two Americans, and somewhat surprisingly it’s Michelsen who leads the head-to-head 2-1, (two on hard-courts and one on clay) and he’s usually doing well in matching Fritz shot qualities from the baseline.
The bigger storyline here might be Fritz’s knee, which he was managing all the way through his run to the Washington final earlier this month. If it’s holding up, his superior return game and generally more consistent baseline play should be enough to get the job done but it won’t be easy.
Predictions
We’ll have to think the knee issues are manageable for the World no 8 and I predict he will see this game through but these two have played on a very even level previously and it might be an idea to look into a hcp bet on Michelsen.
Joao Fonseca vs Botic van de Zandschulp
Fonseca is coming off a fourth-round finish in Montreal and he’ll want a good run in Cincy to help lock down a top-24 seed for the US Open. The 23rd seed had a first-round bye in Cincinnati.
Van de Zandschulp, meanwhile, has been in really fine form. He beat Mpetshi Perricard, Medvedev and Hurkacz in Montreal before finally running into Mensik in the quarterfinals, and he opened Cincinnati with a clean 6-4, 6-4 win over lucky loser Aleksandr Shevchenko.
Their head-to-head is tied 1-1, both matches coming on indoor hard courts: Fonseca won 6-4, 7-6(3) at the 2024 Davis Cup, before van de Zandschulp got his revenge 7-5, 7-6(2) at Brussels last year.
Predictions and best bets
Van de Zandschulp is clearly playing with confidence right now but I’m not convinced we’ll see this consistency from him over a longer period. Fonseca has a higher level and does not want to leave the tournament already… I’d expect a sharp game from the Brazilian but it might take all three sets.
