Luciano Darderi vs Denis Kudla Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP Houston

Prediction published on 01/04/2024, 07:11  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 01/04/2024 at 08:11 in Tennis Predictions

Luciano Darderi is up against wild card Denis Kudla in this US Open clay court tournament first round match. The winning player goes into the last 16 and a tough match against second seeded Francisco Cerundolo. Darderi is ranked a career high 72nd in the latest list and is 69th in the live rankings. The Italian has played two hard court matches this year and lost both of them. He'll be glad to return to clay, a surface that he has had some success on this year. He played on the South American clay court tour and won the tournament held in Cordoba. That was a big win for him as Darderi had to qualify to get into the main draw. He won seven matches (two sets dropped) and had wins over three top 60 ranked players. Darderi also got to the last eight in Santiago.

Denis Kudla is down at 160th in the rankings, well below his career high of 53rd. That was achieved eight years ago though and he's been struggling for form this year. The American received a wild card to play in this ATP 250 tournament. He has been playing mainly on the Challenger Tour this year and got to a semi-final in Cleveland. His best performance on the ATP Tour this year was reaching the last 16 in Dallas but those were outdoor hard court events. Kudla played the Challenger Tour event held in Mexico last week and got to the last four. He didn't beat anyone ranked in the top 230 and was beaten by Nicolas Meija who was ranked 444th at the time. We go for Darderi to win this match in straight sets.