Roman Safiullin vs Karen Khachanov Prediction: We bet on Roman to win

Within the framework of the rouns of 32 of the Vienna tennis tournament Roman Safiullin, the 43rd racket of the world, will meet with Karen Khachanov, the 16th number of the ATP ranking of Russia. The guys have not played each other in the Tour, and the bookmakers are on the side of Roman, who in the fall of 2023 has much better statistics and game practice than Karen.

Last week, Safiullin played two matches at a tournament in Stockholm and was stronger than Brazilian Wild but weaker than Frenchman Mannarino. Before that, Roman played in China, Chengdu, and Shanghai tournaments. The Shanghai Masters was not very successful, but in Chengdu, Roman showed his best side and reached the final, where he lost to Alexander Zverev, currently the 10th-ranked player in the world, in three sets. As we can see, the Russian has a stable playing practice.

After a successful tournament in Zhuhai, Karen failed in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo. In Tokyo, Karen lost his first match to Australian Popyrin in two sets: 4:6, 2:6 in one hour and 32 minutes. During that game, Karen served seven times with three double faults, winning 69% of his points on first and 40% on second serve.

Bookmakers have made Safiullin a slight favorite for the upcoming game, and we will agree. Roman has been showing more stable results than Karen lately, although both have played well in China, Karen in Zhuhai and Roman in Chengdu. But after Zhuhai, Karen has had failure after failure, including last week in Tokyo. It is also important to note that for Khachanov, the tournament in Vienna will be his first in Europe this term, while Safiullin played two matches in Stockholm last week. We believe that Roman will win on Monday, but we doubt that the match will be quick. We expect a long match in which the winner will be decided in the third game.