ATP Atlanta – Thursday Preview

Teenager Ryan Harrison takes on the much older Xavier Malisse but will probably find the Belgian has too much experience.These two met in the 2009 Sarasota Challenger 1/4 final, where Malisse ran out a comfortable winner in straight sets.

Harrison did well at Wimbledon, beating Ivan Dodig ( 41 ) in 1st round before going out to 6th ranked David Ferrer in 5 sets. Followed that up with a disappointing 1st round exit to lower ranked Arnaud Clement at Newport.

Malisse comes here after a good but eventually disappointing Wimbledon. After good results in rounds 2 & 3 against higher ranked Mayer & Meltzer, went out in the 4th round in straight sets to lower ranked Bernard Tomic. Xavier Malisse has won 57% of his ATP tour matches this year and if you look at the last 3 months he has won 61% so is a very consistent performer. He is ranked 40 and is playing Ryan Harrison who is ranked at 120 and in all the 4 matches where Malisse has played against opposition ranked around this level he has won convincingly.

Ryan Harrison has won just 29% of his ATP tour games this year but in the last 3 months this has dropped to 20% but this is just 1 win. Harrison has struggled to get past the first round in most his tournaments apart from at Indian Wells where he reached the 4th round losing to Roger Federer but this was in early March and his performance since then has not lived up to this.

Malisse has progressed well in most of his tournaments this year and his last 2 ended in the semi Final at the Unicef tournament the week before Wimbledon and then in the 4th round at Wimbledon.

With Harrison's win rate being so low and Malisse showing improved performance and results in the last couple of months I would make this a far easier win that the odds suggest.