Alexander Shevchenko vs Richard Gasquet Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Qatar Open

Prediction published on 18/02/2024, 10:51  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 18/02/2024 at 11:52 in Tennis Predictions

The first round of the ExxonMobil Open sees unseeded Alexander Shevchenko take on wild card Richard Gasquet. A tough task awaits the winner of this match with the scheduled opponent being top seeded Andrey Rublev. Shevchenko is 39th in the Live ATP Race and that's 81 places above Gasquet at the time of writing this article. In the overall rankings, Shevchenko is up to a new career high 45th in the overall live rankings, 80 clear of his opponent. Last week in Rotterdam saw him get to the last eight before losing to Grigor Dimitrov. Before that he had knocked out Holger Rune. That was his second ATP Tour quarter final of the year having also got to that stage in Montpellier. This is his first match against Gasquet and he'll be expecting it to be a winning one.

Richard Gasquet was as high as seventh in the rankings once but that was 17 years ago. He's 37 years old now and is gradually edging towards retirement after a great career. This year didn't start well for the Frenchman with his first five matches all ending in defeat. He finally got off the mark on the lesser Challenger Tour. Gasquet played in Manama and made it all the way to the final but lost to Mikhail Kukushkin. He's not won a match in his last eight ATP Tour events. We tip Shevchenko to win this match and set up that match against the top seed.