Cincinnati R2 previews and predictions: Nadal vs. Gasquet, Thiem vs. Fognini

The Cincinnati draw has been decimated, but Rafael Nadal’s remains a tough one. It begins against Richard Gasquet on Wednesday. Dominic Thiem and Fabio Fognini are in second-round action on Tuesday.

(1) Rafael Nadal vs. Richard Gasquet

Nadal and Gasquet will be squaring off for the 15th time in their careers at the ATP level when they clash in round two of the Western & Southern Open on Wednesday. This is one of the most lopsided head-to-head series in tennis, with Nadal having swept all 14 of their previous encounters. Only four times has Gasquet event managed to snag a set, and he has not accomplished that feat since the 2008 Rogers Cup. Since then, Nadal has won 23 sets in a row–a streak that spans 10 matches. The two friends and fellow veterans most recently faced each other on the indoor hard courts of Basel in 2015, where the Spaniard prevailed 6-4, 7-6(7).

With Roger Federer joining Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, and many others on the sidelines, and with a red-hot Alexander Zverev surely running on almost empty, Nadal is the favorite on paper to triumph in Cincinnati for a second time (2013). The world No. 2 is coming off a disappointing Montreal loss to Denis Shapovalov that prevented him from ascending to the top of the rankings, but he is still 47-8 this season with four titles. Gasquet is a decent 21-11 in 2017, but he was just 1-3 in his last four matches prior to Cincinnati. The 29th-ranked Frenchman kicked off his campaign with a 6-4, 6-4 first-round defeat of John-Patrick Smith on Monday. A steep step up in competition in the form of his biggest nemesis should bring about a swift end to Gasquet’s week.

Pick: Nadal in 2

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(3) Dominic Thiem vs. Fabio Fognini

Thiem is heading straight for a second consecutive berth in the World Tour Finals, but the jury is still out on his hard-court form. The eighth-ranked Austrian has reached all three of his 2017 finals on clay (one title in Rio de Janeiro) and aside from a quarterfinal performance in Indian Wells has not done much on any other surface. Thiem is coming off a pair of brutal three-set losses–to Kevin Anderson in a final-set tiebreaker in Washington, D.C. and to Diego Schwartzman in Montreal, both from match point up.

Up first for the third seed on Tuesday is Fognini, who dropped their only previous contest 6-3, 6-0 two years ago on the red clay of Munich. Even though Fognini is also adept on the slow stuff, a hard court should give him a better chance in this matchup. The 25th-ranked Italian earned another shot at Thiem by beating Daniil Medvedev 7-6(5), 6-4 on Monday. That is a positive result for Fognini, but he went back to the slow stuff from three tournaments following Wimbledon so he has just one hard-court match under his belt.

Pick: Thiem in 3

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