Day 2 at the ATP 500 event in Hamburg will feature a lot of the seeds making their debut and should provide a lot of high quality and entertaining matches. While most of the world’s best players (bar Zverev and Rune) have chosen to skip this tournament, there are a lot of clay court specialists in the draw vying for a rare title at this level.
ATP Hamburg Day 2 Predictions
Marco Trungelliti vs Sebastian Ofner
Head-to-head: Trungelliti 1-0 Ofner
Ofner’s best result has come on grass, where he reached the final in Mallorca, although he also had a decent run at Roland Garros. He’s a far superior overall to Trungelitti, but the latter loves playing on clay and can definitely cause some issues here. Still, all things considered, Ofner should be able to come through here in a tightly contested match.
Prediction: Ofner in 3
Thiago Seyboth Wild vs Zhizhen Zhang
Head-to-head: first meeting
Both players have shown the ability to play excellent tennis on clay, but also a lot of inconsistency. Overall, Zhang is the more solid and consistent player of the two, but on clay at least Wild is capable of higher peaks. It’s a very hard matchup to call and it should go the distance, but if push comes to shove Seyboth Wild should have the slightest of edges.
Prediction: Seyboth Wild in 3
Felipe Meligeni Alves vs Dusan Lajovic
Head-to-head: Lajovic 1-0 Meligeni Alves
Both are clay specialists looking to pile up points in this kind of tournaments to go up the rankings. Lajovic has had quite admirable longevity and is still a solid ATP level player on this surface even at 34. While this should be a very tight match, Lajovic’s experience should give him a slight edge here and he should be able to advance.
Prediction: Lajovic in 3
Holger Rune vs Fabian Marozsan
Head-to-head: Marozsan 1-0 Rune
Marozsan routined Rune 6-1 6-1 when they faced earlier this year in Miami, but that is very unlikely to happen again here, even if Rune is prone to that kind of awful performances every once in a while. The Dane’s season has been way below expectations, he has slid down the rankings considerably and is desperate to get some momentum going on his preferred clay. He got a tough first round draw here but he has to find a way to win this kind of tough matches if he wants to return to the top of the game.
Prediction: Rune in 3
Main Photo Credit: Andy Abeyta/The Desert Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK
