Karen Khachanov and Marin Cilic are mired in slumps as they continue their clay-court campaigns at the Madrid Masters. Khachanov opens against Jaume Munar on Monday, while Cilic faces a potentially tough test in qualifier Martin Klizan.
(WC) Jaume Munar vs. (11) Karen Khachanov
Khachanov was an alternate at the 2018 Nitto ATP Finals. More than four months into this season, he is outside the top 70 in the race to London. The 22-year-old Russian will try to start turning things around when he goes up against Munar in the Mutua Madrid Open first round on Monday. Khachanov is a mere 7-9 in 2019 and has lost his opening match at four consecutive tournaments since reaching the Indian Wells quarterfinals.
Munar, on the other hand, is in the midst of a breakout 2019 campaign. The 21-year-old Spaniard owns more than half of his lifetime ATP level match victories this season (15 of 26) and is up to No. 55 in the world. A product of Rafael Nadal’s academy, Munar is already a four-time quarterfinalist on clay this year and he is coming off a third-round performance in Barcelona. Based on current form and home-court advantage in Spain, Munar should be able to get the job done–and it would not be much of an upset.
Pick: Munar in 2
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(9) Marin Cilic vs. (Q) Martin Klizan
Cilic and Klizan will be going head-to-head for the fourth time in their careers and for the first time in seven years when they finally meet again on Monday. All three of their previous encounters have gone Cilic’s way, and all of those came back in 2012. The Croat prevailed 7-5, 6-4, 6-0 in round four of the U.S. Open, 7-5, 6-1 at the Shanghai Masters, and 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 shortly thereafter in Valencia.
Fast forward seven years and neither man is on top of his respective game at the moment. Like Khachanov, Cilic is saddled with a losing record in 2019 and right now looks like an afterthought for the year-end championship. The world No. 11 is 4-6 overall and 0-4 in his last four matches dating back to the Indian Wells third round. Klizan already has two matches under his belt in Madrid, where he went through qualifying at the expense of Ernests Gulbis and Adrian Mannarino. The 60th-ranked Slovak has always been dangerous on the slow stuff and he will likely extend Cilic’s woes.
Pick: Klizan in 3
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WWW?
This may come off wrong but I just wanna say that lately your match predictions have been well off the mark. But not just marginally wrong, but polar opposite wrong.It seems that you always take In form players to win EVERY single first round match they play. For example munar yesterday. You even expected verdasco to lose to albot on clay in Madrid ??
wrong
Munar should have won he was leading 3-0 first set
Plus Cilic only scraped through