Tara Daniel
Prior to qualifying in Acapulco, Taro played two matches at the Challenger in Monterrey, where he lost to Croatia’s Goyo in the round of 16. Daniel started the competition in Acapulco with qualifying, from where he eliminated local competitor Hernandez and American Holt. In the first round of the main draw, Taro confidently defeated another US representative, Jeffrey Wolf, the world’s 44th racket. The match against Wolf lasted one hour and 47 minutes and was won by Taro 6-4, 6-4. Japanese stats in this match: 2/1 aces/doubles, 71%/44% service points scored, 36/53% reception points scored, 2/1 winners/execution. Note that the Japanese committed only one unforced error during the entire meeting with Wolf.
Kacper Ruud
The tournament in Acapulco for Kasper Ruud is the first since the Australian Open in which the Norwegian lost in the second round to the American Brooksby. In Mexico, Kasper had one win over the world’s 342nd rocket, Argentine Andreozi. Andreozzi qualified earlier as did Taro Daniel and I have to say he gave the Scandinavian a real fight. The match lasted almost three hours, 6:4, 4:6, 7:6 in favor of Kasper. You can see that Rud lacks practice in the game and he is still far from optimal conditions. So don’t be surprised if the European will have problems in the upcoming match.
Daniel – Ruud: statistics of tennis players in 2023
| Tennis player | Rating | Total number of matches in 2023 | wins | failures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tara Daniel | 125 | 12 | 7 | 5 |
| Kacper Ruud | 4 | 6 | 3 | 3 |
Head to head Daniel – Ruud
Taro and Kasper played each other once, in 2016 in the final of the Challenger in Seville. The tournament took place on clay courts, Ruud won it with a score of 6:3, 6:4.
Prediction for the duel Daniel vs Ruud
Of course, if Kasper was in good shape, betting on the Norwegian would be an interesting option. The Norwegian, however, spent more than a month with only one match against Andreozzi, the world’s 342nd seed, whom he defeated only in the third set in a tie-break. Perhaps in the next match, Ruud will play better than against the Argentine, but we doubt that Kasper will get a landslide victory over the Japanese, who has a complete order on the Mexican courts. We’re betting on the outsider in this pair, we won’t be surprised if Tarot finally breaks the third round of the draw.
The main prediction is for Daniel to win with a handicap (4.5) of 1.77