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Ugo Humbert and Miomir Kecmanovic will square off on Thursday in the ATP Atlanta second round.
This has been a breakout season for the 21 year old Humbert, who managed to recently break the Atp Top 50 despite being outside the Top 100 at the beginning of the year. Humbert had an exceptional run at the start of the season on hard courts, and, after struggling a bit on clay, picked up his form on grass. Most recently Humbert reached the fourth round at Wimbledon (lost to Djokovic) and the semifinals at Newport last week (lost a close one to Isner). Here in Atlanta he had an easy first round, beating the unranked Gromley 7-6 6-2.
Kecmanovic had a similar season to Humbert, in the sense that he climbed more than 50 spots in the rankings (breaking the Top 70), played particularly well in the first part of the year on hard courts, struggled on clay and got his form back on grass. In fact, their seasons have been almost identical. Kecmanovic’s latest results are a final in Antalya and a second round loss at Wimbledon. In the first round here in Atlanta, he got past Jack Sock after two tiebreaks.
Bet on Humbert v Kecmanovic and claim your 100% (100 Eur) bonus at 1XBet now!The H2H is 1-0 for Kecmanovic, with the only meeting taking place just one month ago, in Antalya, on grass. Kecmanovic won 6-4 7-5. A matchup analysis won`t reveal any particular edge for one player over the other, and the surface is perfect for both players – as both are hard court experts and had tremendous results on the surface this season.
While both guys had an excellent season, fact is Humbert looked better recently, and has been in better form over the past few weeks.
Humbert played very well in his fourth round showing at Wimbledon and was very solid in Newport as well last week. He eventually lost against Isner in the semifinals, but played really well and was the better player for much of the match – he could have easily won that one, and for a fair amount of time it looked quite likely that he will. As for his first match in Atlanta, it was just a routine win over an unranked opponent, the perfect match for Humbert to get reacquainted with hard courts.
Meanwhile, Kecmanovic didn`t do much since he reached the final in Antalya last month. Most importantly, he did not look good in the first round against Jack Sock two nights ago. Sock was coming back after a six month layoff, but Kecmanovic failed to take control of the match, also chocking a couple of favorable positions. Kecmanovic was tentative, soft, and all he did was wait for Sock’s unforced errors – which, fortunately for the Serbian, came in bunches. Sock was unlucky not to win at least a set.
It was a bit surprising to see Kecmanovic bullied by an out of shape Sock two nights ago, and with that level of play he certainly is an underdog against an in form and arguably better player in Humbert.
Having watched both players recently, and particularly watching Kecmanovic’s display against Sock, I`m very happy to back Humbert here. Prediction: Ugo Humbert – Miomir Kecmanovic 7-6 6-3.
Pick: Humbert
Odds: 1.96 @ Unibet
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 7.68
Event date: 25 July
