Andy Murray vs Harold Mayot Prediction & Betting Tips - Aix en Provence, France

Prediction published on 05/05/2023, 15:21  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 05/05/2023 at 16:26 in Tennis Predictions

Andy Murray bids to reach the final of the Open Aix Provence. He's the fifth seed for this Challenger Tour event and takes on lucky loser Harold Mayot. Neither player thought they'd be in the main draw of this tournament. Murray is playing because of his early exit from the Madrid Masters. That led to him wanting more time on clay before the Rome Masters and French Open are played. As for Mayot, he lost in the qualifying rounds of this tournament so didn't expect to be in the semi-final. Murray hasn't made a good start to the clay court season so will appreciate getting some more matches in this week. He's so far won three matches only dropping a set in round two against Laurent Lokoli. This run to the last four sees him at 55th in the live rankings. Winning this match will take him to 47th place.

Harold Mayot will have the French fans cheering him on but he faces a tough task. Mayot was ranked 241st in the last ATP rankings that were issued. He's up to 195th in the live rankings which is 42 places higher than his career-high. This rise into the top 200 for the first time wasn't anticipated when losing to Ivan Gakhov in the second qualifying round. He was put into the main draw as a lucky loser after players withdrew from the tournament. He hasn't looked back since. He's won three matches in the main draw without losing a set. That has included beating the second seed Brandon Nakashima and in the last eight, the fifth seeded Alexander Bublik. Before this tournament he's reached three Challenger Tour quarter finals but Mayot has had five first match losses but he's left that form behind this week. His run of success looks like ending here, go for Murraty to get the win.