Michael Russell vs Ram Rajeev

Michael Russell is still playing at ATP level, however with less success than in previous years. Actually, he looks like more of a challenger player in last couple of years. Still, his results this year aren’t that good – speaking for challenger tournaments, however his result at ATP level are better this season then in previous four season, this probably means that due to his age – is 34 years old already, he is losing his motivation to go from week to week to small tournaments and smaller towns, fighting against all kind of less known players/younger upcoming players. Anyway, as said his ATP record isn’t that bad this season, as he reached second rounds of San Jose and Montpellier tournaments, but also semifinals of Houston on clay court (he defeated Gimeno-Traver, Fish, Harrison, losing to Monaco in three sets). He is also having quite a good run on grass court, of course for a player of his rankings. He came to the second round of Wimbledon from the qualifying rounds losing to Julien Bennetau in four sets, same player that gave a lot of trouble to Federer in next round. The American have won over Donald Young in three sets in the first round here.

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Ram Rajeev, on the other side, is even less of a ATP level player than his opponent is. This will be his third match on the ATP tournaments this season, first one was in Miami where he lost to Garcia-Lopez in two sets, with second one being here in Newport as he won over Grega Zemlja in two easy sets. His best result this season was a final of Leon challenger on hard court in Mexico. While his clay court season isn’t worth mentioning, he was stopped in the final qualifying round at Wimbledon, losing to Dustin Brown in four sets. As said, here in Newport he won over the Slovenian in two easy sets, but the Slovenian had seven double faults with lousy number of won points on his second serve.

Russell already leads 3:1 in mutual matches, he is far more experienced and is having better results this season. Ram is having a very good serve and is quickly trying to approach the net in most of the points played at his serve, many times he does it without real game plan. This is something that a player like Russell must take advantage of sooner or later.

Bet: Michael Russell to win @2.02 with Pinnacle Sports