Tennys Sandgren vs Fabio Fognini Tennis Prediction
These two players met once in the second round of ATP Rio de Janeiro earlier this season, and it was one of those 12 matches in which Fognini lost the first set but won the match. Sandgren is Fognini’s second American opponent in two days, and he will need to produce a better performance than what he managed against Noah Rubin.
Fabio Fognini News
Second seed Fabio Fognini survived an early scare as he had to fight back from a set down to beat the world #204 Noah Rubin on Wednesday, 6-7 6-2 6-2. It was his first match of the week, having got a bye in the first round.
The mercurial Italian has won 21 matches so far in 2018 (21/11), and he lost the first set in 12 of those matches, including his comeback win against Noah Rubin.
World #19 Fabio Fognini lost his quarterfinal match to Rafael Nadal at the Rome Masters last week (4-6 6-1 6-2), and he will be hoping to go at least one step further this week in Geneva.
Fabio Fognini made three more quarterfinal appearances earlier this season (two during the South American clay swing), and he won all three, against Adrian Mannarino in Sydney, Aljaz Bedene in Rio de Janeiro and Guillermo Garcia Lopez in Sao Paulo.
Tennys Sandgren News
After avoiding an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Andreas Haider Maurer in the first round (1-6 6-1 6-0, yet to win an MD match on tour since Beijing 2015), Tennys Sandgren produced a better performance as he cruised to a straight-set win over Mirza Basic in the second round, 6-3 6-2.
Though the American has faced seven opening-round defeats so far in 2018, he will consider this as a successful start to the season, having posted his career-best slam result in the Australian Open (lost QF to Hyeon Chung) and career-best result on tour by finishing as the runner-up to Steve Johnson in Houston (won QF against Guido Pella).
Tennis Prediction: Fabio Fognini 2-0 SET
Odds: 1.40
