Frances Tiafoe vs Jiri Lehecka Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Cincinnati Open

Prediction published on 15/08/2024, 05:48  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 15/08/2024 at 06:17 in ATP Cincinnati Open Predictions

Two unseeded players meet in the last 16 of the Cincinnati Masters. Frances Tiafoe takes on the returning Jiri Lehecka and both players knocked out a seeded player in the last round. Read on to discover our match prediction.

Frances Tiafoe is the higher ranked player of the two. He's at 27th in the live rankings and will hope to again go well in a hard court tournament. He recently reached the semi-finals in Washington, only losing to eventual champion Sebastian Korda.

The American also got to the quarter-finals in Atlanta but lost in his first match against Alejandro Tabilo last week in Montreal. With two other hard court last eight appearances and a semi-final this year, he's a difficult player to beat when in form.

So far in Cincinnati, he's beaten Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and 14th seed Lorenzo Musetti, both in straight sets.

Jiri Lehecka is enjoying a great week as he plays his first tournament since April's Madrid Masters. Back spasms forced him to retire from that tournament but now he's back on court and has had two good wins this week.

Round one saw him beat unseeded Mariano Navone and then on Wednesday, he defeated fourth seed Daniil Medvedev. A tie-break has been played in both of those victories. Lehecka is now up to 31st in the live rankings so a seeding at the US Open is looking likely.

He's won one hard court tournament this year. That was in Adelaide seven months ago. This could be close and we go for over 0.5 tie-breaks to be played.