Alex de Minaur vs Andrey Rublev Prediction: The Russian is quoted as a big favorite in the pair

In the round of 8 of the Paris tennis tournament, world No. 13 Alex De Minaur will meet with No. 5 of the ATP ranking Russian Andrey Rublev. The guys have crossed paths four times before in the Tour, the score of the confrontation is 3:1 in favor of the Australian, but despite the statistics, the Russian is quoted as a big favorite in the pair.

De Minaur beat Britain's Murray and Serbia's Lajovic in three sets and was supposed to play Jannick Sinner in the round of 16, but the Italian dropped out of the match. Frankly speaking, we doubt that if Sinner had played against De Minaur at his usual high level, we would have seen the Australian in the quarterfinals of the Masters in Paris. Before Paris, Alex participated in the games in Basel, where he beat Argentine Schwartzman in two sets but lost to Dutchman Griekspoor in the same two sets.

Last week, the Russian played in Vienna, where he reached the semifinals, losing to Jannick Sinner, who eventually became the triumphant winner of that tournament. In Paris, Andrei has two wins in two games over Japan's Nishioka and the Dutchman Van de Zandschulp. The match against Botik lasted only an hour and 5 minutes, and Andrey won it 6:3, 6:3. During the game, Rublev served four times with four double faults, winning 88% of points on the first serve and 56% on the second serve. We note the excellent statistics of the Russian.

On the one hand, Andrey is now a more status tennis player in good shape. On the other hand, Alex is an uncomfortable opponent for Andrey, who has won 100% of his head-to-head meetings with Rublev on hard courts. We believe Andrey will finally be able to beat the Australian on hard court on Friday, but we doubt that this victory will be easy and the match will be quick.