Karen Khachanov vs Dusan Lajovic Tennis Prediction

These two players met once in the quarterfinal of Kitzbuhel (clay) in 2016 when the Serbian prevailed in straight sets. Khachanov is talented of these two, and he will start as the favorite but Lajovic, on a good day, is capable of challenging the Russian, as he proved in their previous meeting (6-3 6-2).

Dusan Lajovic News

Dusan Lajovic had to defeat two veterans in the qualifying stages to book his first main draw berth in the Madrid Masters (Daniel Gimeno Traver and Florian Mayer).
Making his Madrid debut in 2016, the Serbian lost to Santiago Giraldo in the final qualifying match. He opted to enter the Aix en Provence challenger during this period of the calendar in 2017, where he again failed to win a match, losing to Reilly Opelka in the first round.
Lajovic suffered his second consecutive second-round defeat when he lost to Jeremy Chardy at ATP Istanbul last week. Prior to that, he failed to Feliciano Lopez in the second round of ATP Barcelona.
So far in 2018, the former world #57 Lajovic has entered ten tournaments on tour but could not register consecutive wins in any of them. However, he won the challenger title at Le Gosier in the first week of April 2018.

Karen Khachanov News

Karen Khachanov made a fine start to the season by winning his second tour title at Marseille and making two quarterfinal appearances at Auckland and Montpellier. His W/L ratio in 2018 stands at 16/11.
Since winning the title at Marseille, the Russian has entered five tournaments but could not win more than a match in four of them, at Dubai, Indian Wells, Miami, and Barcelona.
Karen Khachanov’s only previous appearance at Madrid came in 2017 when he lost to David Goffin in the first round (R1). Having got himself a (relatively) comfortable first-round opponent, he would be hoping for a better result this time around.

Tennis Prediction: Karen Khachanov
Odds: 1.53