No. 1 seed Adrian Mannarino will continue his Antalya campaign when he runs into Joao Sousa during quarterfinal action on Thursday. Gael Monfils and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez are also aiming for a place in the semis.
(1) Adrian Mannarino vs. (6) Joao Sousa
Mannarino and Sousa will be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers when they clash in the quarterfinals of the Turkish Airlines Open on Thursday. Their only previous meeting came four years ago on the hard courts of Acapulco, where Sousa got the job done 1-6, 6-2, 6-2. Grass, however, should favor Mannarino. The 24th-ranked Frenchman finished runner-up in Antalya last summer and he has twice reached the Wimbledon fourth round, including last season. By comparison, he has not advanced to round four at any other slam.
Sousa is in the midst of a solid season that includes a 20-13 overall record and his third career ATP title–which came at home in Portugal on the red clay of Estoril. The world No. 47 was on a four-match losing streak heading into this week, but so far in Antalya he has defeated Florian Mayer (6-2, 6-2) and Mirza Basic (6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4). This is already an impressive grass-court result for Sousa, and asking him to outfox Mannarino on this surface may be too much.
Pick: Mannarino in 2
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(4) Gael Monfils vs. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
Monfils and Garcia-Lopez will be squaring off for the eighth time in their careers at the ATP level on Thursday. Monfils is leading the head-to-head series 4-3, with three wins on clay and one on hard courts as the two veterans prepare for their first-ever clay-court encounter. They have not faced each other since 2015, when Garcia-Lopez prevailed 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2 on the clay courts of Bucharest. The 35-year-old Spaniard pushed an in-form Jeremy Chardy to a third-set tiebreaker last week in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and has advanced in Antalya at the expense of Taro Daniel and Robin Haase (both in three sets).
Going into this week, Monfils was an even 11-11 in his last 22 matches since beginning the season 5-0 with a title in Doha. The injury-plagued Frenchman is 2-4 in his six most recent matches, winning twice at Roland Garros before losing a five-setter to David Goffin in the third round. On grass for the first time in 2018 in Antalya, Monfils followed up an opening bye with a 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 victory over Blaz Kavicic on Wednesday. That result is hardly encouraging and a capable all-court player like Garcia-Lopez should send the fourth seed on his way to Wimbledon.
Pick: Garcia-Lopez in 3
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Same picks as Ricky