ATP Eastbourne – Men’s Thursday Preview

Igor Kunitsyn vs. Julien Benneteau

Eastbourne was completely messed up with the rain this week and three matches are yet to finish and the winners will need to play their matches in quarter-finals.

Things are wide open in Eastbourne this year. This might be the feeling of these players too as both will look for the points here. But neither looked too impressive in his last match, the Russian struggled against Marchenko and his returns were poor but was helped by the Ukrainian while Benneteau was pushed all the way but managed to bounce back in a match that looked lost.

Overall the Frenchman served better and he put a lot of fight on court, he won point with point to bounce back in the match. Kunitsyn has a defensive approach even on grass, his serve hasn’t same sting here, he likes to win through his defense but from the back of the court the Frenchman looks better. Benneteau put more fight on court against Devvarman and showed some solid tennis through out the match.

 

Janko Tipsarevic vs Mikhail Kukushkin

A nice form from Mikhail Kukushkin's side, no doubts that he did well till this stage but I will say that he is a litter bit overrated by the bookies at the moment. I say that because he has eliminated two players better than him as he was the underdog in both games, well these two players are Teimuraz Gabashvili and Jeremy Chardy and I will say without any doubts that both didn't played their tennis against Kukushkin, I have watched both games of Kukushkin and I can say you that this player possess limited qualities, quite nice deffensive skills of course but no real weapons to compete on a higher level. Kukushkin is the player who can't create real problems to Tipsarevic as there is all about the style of playing, of course that in case if Tipsarevic is playing at his level. IMO Kukushkin won't have solutions for this game as he won't trouble too much Tipsarevic due to only his deffensive skills, cause this is his best part of the game. Tipsarevic is a great defender and he shouldn't get surprised at all in this one. All in all, the difference in class between these 2 players is meaningful and this line game handicap is quite low.

Olivier Rochus vs. Carlos Berlocq

Lleyton Hewitt was forced to retire during his first round match against Olivier Rochus due to a recurrence of a foot injury.

The Belgian will meet now the Argentine Carlos Berlocq who managed to beat uninterested Dolgopolov for his second win of his career on grass.

The Ukrainian was off on serve, especially on the second which was predictable and made some errors on court which allowed to the Argentine to take the lead.

Rochus has the better grass court game with a lot of slices and angles in his shots, good retrieving skills.

Kei Nishikori vs. Rainer Schuettler

With the performance here, the German Rainer Schuettler will be back in top 100 again. He is in good form on grass and he made a solid match against Stakhovsky facing only one break point and being solid on serve and retrieving.

He will meet Nishikori who didn’t impress too much in his win over Kirilov, the Japanese made his usual game but he didn’t excel. The German has a lot of experience and seems that he found his game at returns here, with his good angles in his shots the Japanese can move him from side to side and tired down but Schuettler is a good counter-punching and the surface permit to be more decisive. He played well in Eastbourne so far.