Tennis prediction: Tim van Rijthoven - Kasper Zhuk

In the 1/8 finals of the challenger in a Camper, Pole Kasper Zhuk will fight Tim van Rijthoven from the Netherlands.

Tim van Rijthoven

The 24-year-old representative of the Netherlands in the match of the 1/16 finals, which was yesterday, fully met our expectations, although he did not finish the total more than 22.5 games. Van Rijthoven had a hard match with Frenchman Antoine Oan, but in the end was able to beat him in two sets – 7:6 (7:2); 6:3. Tim showed very good control over his serve in this match. In the first set, he failed to make a break, but in the tiebreak he brought the matter to an end. But in the second set, van Rijthoven had already found the weak points of the Frenchman and as a result was able to make two breaks at once.

Casper the Beetle

The 23-year-old Pole, in turn, fought with another Frenchman in the 1/16 finals the day before yesterday. The Beetle's rivals were Gilles Simon, who is still a much more interesting opponent. The match, as expected, turned out to be extremely stubborn. The first set was not easy for Casper. The Pole immediately lost the game on his serve and at some point began to lose 0:3, but Kasper was able to make a break with the score 4:5, and then squeeze the game into a tie-break – 7:6 (7:5). In the second set, Gilles Simon already looked more stable, Kasper almost lost a game on his serve twice during the game, but at the end of the set, the Frenchman still squeezed the opponent and won it with a score of 6:4. In the deciding set, the tennis players played cautiously for most of the time and controlled their serve first of all. But, at some point, 37-year-old Simon was already getting tired and in the end the Beetle took advantage of it. Kasper made a break with the score 4:3 in his favor, and then competently served for the match – 6:3.

Tim van Rijthoven and Kasper Zhuk met twice in 2020. Both meetings were left to the Pole. For the first time, the Beetle was stronger at the ITF clay tournament in Poland – 6:4; 4:6; 6:3. And for the second time Casper has already beaten Tim at the ITF tournament in Hamburg, this time the tennis players have already played hard – 7:6 (8:6); 6:7 (6:8); 6:3.

Forecast

In this confrontation, we will certainly have a hard fight, but we still believe that Kasper Zhuk, after a high-quality match with Gilles Simon, has a much better chance of winning this confrontation.