Dusan Lajovic vs Kevin Anderson Tennis Prediction
They previously met once in the first round of Miami 2017 when Kevin Anderson prevailed in straight sets. Dusan Lajovic is certainly capable of causing yet another upset on clay, but Kevin Anderson will be a lot more solid and consistent on serve than his previous three opponents (Del Potro, Gasquet and Khachanov) which will make life difficult for the Serbian.
Dusan Lajovic News
Dusan Lajovic, who could not register back-to-back main draw wins on tour before entering the Madrid Masters, has now scored three wins as an underdog. After defeating Karen Khachanov and Richard Gasquet in the earlier rounds, the Serbian fought back from a set down to upset the world #6 Juan Martin Del Potro.
Despite getting completely outplayed in the first set, Lajovic did well to fight his way back into the contest. He even found himself trailing *0-4 in the deciding set tiebreaker, but the determined Serbian managed to pull it off, 3-6 6-4 7-6.
“It’s for sure my best win, and definitely one of the best matches I’ve played. I really felt good on the court today. I felt I had my chances throughout the whole match. I was fighting from the first point till the last. It paid off.” – Dusan Lajovic after securing the win against Juan Martin Del Potro.
With the win against Del Potro, Lajovic recorded his career-best result in an ATP Masters 1000 event. This is also his first quarterfinal appearance on tour since losing to Yuichi Sugita in the quarterfinal of ATP Chengdu in 2017.
Kevin Anderson News
Kevin Anderson takes out the ATP Munich runner-up and in-form Philipp Kohlschreiber in straight sets to progress into the quarterfinal of Madrid Masters for the first time in his career (eight appearances).
While Lajovic is playing his first Masters quarterfinal, Kevin Anderson has made the quarterfinals in all three Masters 1000 events that he entered this season, lost to Borna Coric in Indian Wells and defeated Pablo Carreno Busta in Miami.
Additionally, the big-serving South African played two quarterfinal matches on clay in 2017 and managed to win one at Estoril (vs. Richard Gasquet) before losing the recent once at Geneva (vs. Kei Nishikori).
Impressive performances and results in the past three months helped Anderson achieve his career-high rank of #8 and he has the chance of moving further this week (#7) if he delivers a better result than John Isner and Dominic Thiem, which is very much possible considering Thiem faces Nadal and Isner takes on Zverev.
Tennis Prediction: Kevin Anderson
Odds: 1.60
