Jordan Thompson vs Roman Safiullin Prediction: The rivals have about equal chances of success

In the third round of the tennis tournament in Chengdu, China, Roman Safiullin will meet Australian Jordan Thompson, the 56th ranked player in the world. Bookmakers do not see a clear favorite in the pair, they believe that the rivals have about equal chances of success.

The tournament in China is Thompson's first after his failure at the U.S. Open. In New York, the Australian dropped out of the game after his first match against Van de Zandschulp. In Chengdu, the Australian has two wins over his compatriot Purcell and Serbian Lajovic. The match against the Balkan lasted an hour and a half, and Jordan won it 6:1, 7:6. During the game, the Australian served nine times with zero double faults, won 87% of points on the first serve and 82% on the second. It should be noted that Thompson played a very high-quality match in the second round of the competition.

After beating Nakashima, Safiullin also played well in the second round, knocking out world No. 27 Evans. The match against Daniel lasted an hour and 20 minutes, and Roman won it in two sets with the score 6:3, 6:3. It is obvious that Roman is gaining form after several unsuccessful hard court tournaments and can expect to reach the semifinals of the tournament in China.

Even though Thompson beat Safiullin in Adelaide in 2023, we believe Roman can beat the Australian on Sunday and enter the tournament's semifinals. Roman has improved greatly since their face-to-face meeting in play and psychology. In the last round, Roman beat Evans, a representative of the top-30 ATP ranking. We believe that after the victory over the British player, Roman will be able to beat the Australians as well. As for the total, we do not expect a long match, and Roman has all the chances to beat Thompson in two games.