Kevin Krawietz vs Cem Ilkel ATP Picks - 6/25/2019

Kevin Krawietz vs Cem Ilkel

6 am EST, 25th June 2019

ATP Antalya, Turkey

Grass courts

Kevin Krawietz is not giving up on his singles career just yet. He decided not to pass up an opportunity to enter the qualifying draw in Antalya, since he was already here, preparing to enter the doubles tournament as a No.1 seed partnering Andreas Mies. Type of breakthrough that these two guys managed to achieve this year is something we rarely see. After dominating the challenger tour with 4 titles, they entered Roland Garros doubles draw as a non-seeded team and shocked the world by winning the whole thing. In the finals, they defeated all-French team Jeremy Chardy & Fabrice Martin and reached their career highs in rankings, placing themselves on the edge of the Top 20. Right now, it seems they are completely focused on the doubles, but Krawietz is still using his singles ranking to enter weak qualifying draws and earns some extra pocket money, wherever he can. That wasn't working all that well for him, considering that he's 1-11 this year, taking into account all of his singles matches, including qualifying rounds and challengers. Actually, he was 1-11 before this week, because he won another two in this tournament and surprisingly got his name into the main draw. But those were not some impressive wins that would draw some attention. He got past Aldin Setkic, who is outside Top 300 at the moment and could continue to slide down the rankings with the way he's playing this year. And in the second round, he barely got past Goncalo Oliveira in third set tie-breaker, even though the Portuguese player is most comfortable on clay courts.

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Cem Ilkel is currently the highest ranked Turkish tennis player and is probably getting a lot of attention at this event. He is ranked 271st in the world at the moment and doesn't have a whole lot of experience on this playing surface. But, it's clear that he is coming to Antalya in decent shape, playing well at Fergana challenger last week, where he lost to Cid Subervi in the semifinals. Before that, he did partake in two grass court challengers, suffering losses to Soeda and Bolt and defeating Luke Saville. He is 0-2 at this event, but he did really well last year, playing two very close sets vs a much superior grass court player in Marius Copil.

Matchup

As we all know, grass court tennis highlights many of the same elements that are frequently used in doubles. Serve, return, volleying... All that can become very useful when playing a singles match on this playing surface and considering how well Krawietz was doing lately in doubles, he's someone that should be taken seriously here. But, it also has to be taken into consideration that he was not successful playing singles this year. Being great at the net is a very good skill to have on grass, but first, you have to construct the point for a quality approach and that is something that I believe he'll struggle with, especially against a clearly superior singles player.

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Betting odds & prediction

After opening him as a slight underdog, Krawietz is the side that is taking money so far. I disagree with the move. There can be built a case for him to be competitive in this match, based on 2 matches in the qualifying rounds and the doubles success he had this year. But betting him at this price makes no sense. He should not be the favorite in this match with Ilkel being a better player overall, playing at home and coming to Antalya in very decent form.

Tony's Pick: Cem Ilkel -111

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