In-form Tursunov to get the better of Petzschner

8Mar 2013

ATP Masters 1000

Tennis expert Sean Calvert is back with more tips from the early stages of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells..

Yesterday's betting at Indian Wells didn't go quite the way I expected, with a really poor performance from Guido Pella making for a less than ideal start to the week in the California desert.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately in this instance, there are no pictures from the BNP Paribas Open for the first few days, but it's not hard to see why Pella wasn't in the match. His serve stats were appalling and Ivan Dodig was handed an easy win in the end.

Friday's play at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden features a series of really trappy-looking encounters that have the feel of a toss of a coin about them, but I would expect Dmitry Tursunov to continue his recent good form with a win over Philipp Petzschner.

The 30-year-old Russian has bounced back to form in recent weeks with wins over Delray Beach finalist Edouard Roger-Vasselin, top-10 star Janko Tipsarevic and Michael Llodra and he's been unlucky to run into an in-form Tomas Berdych twice in the last fortnight.

Petzschner in contrast has done little on the court in 2013 and perhaps the arrival of a new baby to his family in January is behind that, but results have been poor and only a Challenger win over Gilles Muller reads well for him this season.

Neither player has a good record at Indian Wells, with both preferring it a fair bit quicker, but Tursunov has won both of the hard court meetings between the pair and was comfortably victorious in their most recent match on hard in Tokyo at the end of last season.

Tursunov has form and confidence on his side and the Russian should prevail in this one at around 1.61.