Fourth seeded Milos Raonic of Canada will face unseeded American Tommy Paul in the Opening Round of 2021 Acapulco Open in Mexico. The match is scheduled to be played on Tuesday March 16th, 2021 at approximately 8:00pm EST.
Will the unseeded American cause the upset and advance? Or will the favored Canadian Milos Raonic get the win and advance to the Round of 16 here at the Acapulco Open?
Milos Raonic is currently ranked #15 in the world, and is a former top 5 player. He has only played two tournaments so far in 2021, with solid but unspectacular results. While he lost in the Fourth Round at the Australian Open, he was in control of the match against Novak Djokovic for long stretches at a time, and will take confidence from it, despite the loss. His game is perfectly suited for hard court, with a huge serve and aggressive ground strokes. With his extensive experience will be very difficult to beat here in Acapulco and has to be considered one of the favorites to lift the title.
His opponent Tommy Paul of the United States is currently ranked a career high #51 in the world and is in decent form at the moment. He started the year off in disappointing fashion, with early round losses in Melbourne and the Australian Open. He has since had some positive results, most notably in Rotterdam last week, defeating higher ranked opponents Lorenzo Sonego and Alexander Bublik en route to the Quarter-Finals. He is very much a confidence based player who will be hoping to continue his strong momentum into Acapulco. He enters this match as the underdog, but certainly has the game to make this competitive.
This match has the potential to be a close one, as Tommy Paul is in good form and Milos Raonic has not played a match since the Australian Open. Normally I would back Raonic to win easily, but he may take some time to get going given his long layoff. Paul will likely start off strongly, and may steal the opening set. However, I expect Milos Raonic to eventually get it together and claim the close win.