Eighth seed Adrian Mannarino faces a challenging first-round match at the Almaty Open against in-form Roman Safiullin on hard courts in Kazakhstan.
The winner will advance to face an unseeded Australian player, either Aleksandar Vukic or James Duckworth. Currently, Safiullin is ranked 58th in the live rankings, just two spots below Mannarino.
Safiullin recently performed well in Shanghai, reaching the fourth round after defeating Alexander Bublik and Frances Tiafoe, the tournament’s top seed. He also made it to the last 16 in Beijing, where he lost to Jannik Sinner but managed to take a set from him.
Mannarino, on the other hand, has improved slightly in the past few months after a difficult summer, where he lost ten consecutive matches before winning in the first round of the US Open. He is currently 56th in the live rankings but held a higher position of 17th in January.
Despite being ahead of Safiullin in live rankings, he is 74th and 11 places behind in the ATP Live Race. Mannarino lost in the first round of the Shanghai Masters to Zachary Svadja, failing to win a game in the final set. With only one win in his last four matches, we predict Safiullin will win in straight sets.