Australian Open Predictions: Day Two, Geoff

The 2015 Australian Open got under way on Monday, with the first batch of Round One action mostly going as expected on the men’s side of the draw. Whilst 5th seed Ana Ivanovic was dumped out of the women’s draw at the first hurdle, only two male seeds fell on the opening day.

15th seed Tommy Robredo was unfortunately forced into retiring in his first match, gifting Edouard Roger-Vasselin the victory and passage into the second round. The highest seed to fall was Ernests Gulbis, losing out to local hero Thanasi Kokkinakis in five sets.

Whilst I predicted a Kokkinankis upset in my day one picks yesterday, my opening set of Australian Open predictions were not the strongest. Hopefully heading into day two I can make ground on the other two guys.

Australian Open Predictions So Far:

out of 32

Brandon – 25

Nate – 24

Geoff – 23

Geoff Nichols’ Round 1 Predictions

1st Half, Djokovic’s Quarter

Djokovic (1) d. Bedene

Despite the form the Bedene has shown at the start of the year the fact the Djokovic has been suffering from an illness in the past few weeks, the Serbian number one has a tremendous ability of peaking for the big tournaments. I can see another match where Bedene only manages single figures.

Kuznetsov d. Ramos-Vinolas

Soeda d. Ymer

Verdasco (31) d. Ward

This is one of the interesting matches for round one, Verdasco is always a dangerous player, however, he has been struggling lately. Ward is one of those player’s who can have a great day, however, I don’t see it happening this time.

Isner (19) d. Wang

Haider-Maurer d. Lokoli

Muller d. Carrero Busta

Bautista Agut (13) d. Thiem

Lopez (12) d. Kudla

Mannarino d. Rola

Janowicz d. Moriya

What a shame that the tantalising match-up between Janowicz and Del Potro is off due to the Argentine’s wrist injury. Janowicz will be breathing a sigh of relief and should find this opponent a lot easier to dispatch and progress into round two.

Monfils (17) d. Pouille

Benneteau (25) d. Becker

Hewitt d. Zhang

Young d. Puetz

Raonic (8) d. Marchenko

1st Half, Wawrinka’s Quarter

Wawrinka (4) d. Ilhan

Andujar d. Copil

Nieminen d. Golubev

Cuevas (27) d. Bachinger

Dolgopolov (21) d. Lorenzi

Querrey d. Pospisil

A match that is incredibly difficult to call, as although their is a disparity in their rankings, Querrey has a habit of either playing like a player from the Top 20 or a player outside of the Top 100. Pospisil will hope the latter is what he faces, but I think Querrey will be locked in and grind out a win.

Garcia-Lopez d. Gojowczyk

Fognini (16) d. Gonzalez

Fognini is liable for an upset in almost every match he plays, but I think he should be able to maintain his focus to dispatch Gonzalez and given the Italian’s portion of the draw, I can see him taking this opportunity for a good run in Australia.

Ferrer (9) d. Bellucci

Stakhovsky d. Lajovic

Granollers d. Robert

Simon (18) d. Haase

Giraldo (30) d. Hernych

Johnson d. Edmund

I was dearly hoping the Edmund would be fortunate in the draw after going through qualifying and Johnson was one of the better outcomes for him, but the American is likely be too strong and experienced for an upset here.

Dodig d. Souza

Nishikori (5) d. Almagro

It will be interesting to see if Nishikori can display the ruthless edge in the opening few round that the other top guys do each and every Grand Slam. It is not the nicest draw, although it is hard to expect Almagro to be anywhere near his best after a difficult year with injury in 2014.

Next: Lob and Smash 2015 Grand Slam Predictions

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