Zhizhen Zhang vs Aslan Karatsev Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Mutua Madrid Open

Prediction published on 03/05/2023, 14:03  by Kennedy Kechula | Modified on 03/05/2023 at 16:46 in Tennis Predictions

Qualifier Aslan Karatsev and the unseeded Zhizhen Zhang will on Thursday go head to head in the quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open. If he does, he will advance to the semifinals where a clash with either fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas or lucky loser Jan-Lennard Struff awaits. Zhang is in his debut tournament in Madrid and has surprised many by advancing this far. Before he arrived here, the Chinese number two had a losing record for the season but he now has a 12-12 record. He has boosted his world ranking thanks to this run and is now placed at number 66 in the live ranking which is a new career high for him. Among the players to fall at his racket have been eighth seed Taylor Fritz, 11th seed Cameron Norrie and 21 seed Denis Shapovalov. He will fancy his chances even more against a player he has defeated before but should be wary given that he has played past the two-hour mark in each of his last three matches. This is their second meeting with Zhang winning the other match but that was on an indoor hard court not the clay surface they'll be playing on here.

Aslan Karatsev is the only player from the qualifying rounds still remaining in the competition and he too just like Zhang has defeated several seeded players on his path to this round. He defeated second seed Daniil Medvedev in the fourth round and 16th seed Alex de Minaur before that. Botic van de Zanschulp (23rd seed) was eliminated in the second round. The Russian has played six matches in what is his third appearance here and has won five of those by straight sets. This has seen him also greatly improve his world ranking by a massive 31 places and is now ranked number 90 in the live ranking. He will hope that Zhang is the more tired of the two for this clash to allow him to advance to the semis for the first time. Karatsev had also struggled to take hold of his season before arriving in Madrid and had won the same number of matches (eight) as he had lost.