So the new tennis season is finally about to kick off and to start with we have exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi followed later by the Hopman cup in Australia which will both provide some great match ups to look forward to. Abu Dhabi will see Djokovic and Nadal in action on Friday and the Hopman Cup will see Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev which starts on Saturday. I'll be covering that tournament shortly. But for now let's focus on two matches coming up Thursday featuring the powerhouse server Kevin Anderson who had his best season ever in 2018 and the surprise next gen player Karen Khachanov who stunned Novak Djokovic in November at the Paris Masters.
Kevin Anderson vs Hyeon Chung (Winner to Play Nadal on Friday)
Any tennis fan worth their weight in salt will know the capabilities of Kevin Anderson, he achieved so much this year but the highlight for me was his win in Vienna towards the end of the year where he defeated Kei Nishikori in the final to win his first ever ATP 500 title. All his other titles have been 250's in the past. The other major achievement was getting to his first ever Wimbledon and second Grand Slam final in two years, where along the way he managed to beat Roger Federer on his favourite surface.
The world number 6 comes up against Korea's Hyeon Chung on Thursday who has experienced a frustrating year dogged by a leg injury. It was in January this year that he played his best tennis reaching the semi final of the Australian open where he had to withdraw against Roger Federer due to blisters. Many felt he was being totally outplayed anyway and would have lost that match but that withdrawal seemed to seal his fate for the rest of the year. When returning from a leg injury in the second half of the year he failed to get going again and his final capitulation was withdrawing against Fognini in Stockholm in October. He hasn't played since.
Prediction: I think Anderson will win this in straight sets. He unlike Chung looked solid and capable of beating anyone this year. The big South African is very hard to break on serve at the best of times, never-mind if your returning from injury and don't have any form. Chung relies on his mobility and defense to win matches but with a lack of match fitness he is going to need to pull a rabbit out of his hat to get anywhere here. It will be questionable whether we see the best from Chung this year but in his first match since withdrawing from yet another injury, Anderson is probably one of the worst sorts of opponents he could face even in an exhibition match. 1.61 for a straight sets win isn't the best of odds but considering Anderson's reliability on serve and Chung's lack of form, they aren't bad.
Dominic Thiem vs Karen Khachanov (Winner to Play Djokovic on Friday)
The second exhibition match on Thursday is by no means a foregone conclusion. Even though Khachanov finished this year with a bang when defeating Djokovic in Paris he still is too much of a stubborn sort of player, the Russian's weakness is the fact that he always wants to force the point home and hit heavy from the baseline, never compromising. His inability to slow the pace down and soften his strokes allows his opponents to adapt to his routine way of playing more easily than the sort of player who can mix it up. We saw this with him in his match against Nishikori in Vienna where he tanked 6-2, 6-2 to the Japanese number one.
Granted that defeat to Nishikori seemed to kick him into overdrive in the next tournament in Paris where he claimed his first ever Masters title. Against Thiem though he will face an opponent who does have a little more to his game in terms of the style of play than Khachanov, who at the age of 22 still has a lot of learning to do. Thiem won his first hard court title in two years back in September in St Petersburg but two tournaments on in Paris, he met Khachanov who pulverised him in Paris. In other words if the Russian is on song with his ground strokes, there's nothing Thiem can do, particularly on a hard court against him.
Prediction: The tennis won't be terribly exciting here, it's just two hard hitters going at it from the back. Khachanov will carry the confidence and form from his last tournament in Paris into this match and will be looking for another straight sets victory over Thiem. Thiem loves clay and is still trying to establish himself on a hard court even though he is now 25 years old, unlike the Russian who looks right at home on this type of court.
I am going for a Khachanov straight sets win at 2.50. Expect the Russian to slam every ball over at Thiem and play in his usual unforgiving manner, whether he will be as deadly as he was in Paris is another matter. But the fact that his serve scores plenty of cheap aces and points will also help his cause against the Austrian. He may slip up and gift the Austrian a set but I feel the odds are good enough to go for the 2-0 win.
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