Prediction Of Kotov Vs Watanuki H2H, Who Will Win At ATP Rolex Shanghai Masters 2024?

What Time Will Pavel Kotov Play Against Yosuke Watanuki?

Kotov and Watanuki are on the Day 2 Schedule at Rolex Shanghai Masters 2024 on Thursday 3 October 2024. Lets breakdown the career, past stats and recent form of these players and predict who will get the victory.

Who Will Win In This Head-To-Head?

Pavel Kotov and [Q] Yosuke Watanuki will be facing each other in their first tour-level meeting. They previously met at the 2023 ATP Masters 1000 Madrid qualifiers, where Watanuki emerged victorious with a scoreline of 6-7(7) 6-3 7-6(3) on clay.

Pavel Kotov, age 25, is currently ranked No. 56 in the world and achieved his career-high ranking of No. 50 in June 2024. He earned his first ranking point at the age of 16 in October 2015 and broke into the Top 100 in October 2022. Kotov reached his career-high after defeating former champion Stan Wawrinka at Roland Garros to reach the third round. He had his biggest career win against No. 25 Tallon Griekspoor, leading him to his first ATP Tour final at the 2023 Stockholm as a qualifier.

In his career, Kotov qualified for his first ATP Tour debut at the 2020 St. Petersburg and Grand Slam debut at the 2022 Roland Garros. He also owns an 89-71 record in Challengers, with three wins in finals including titles at the 2021 Forli-3, 2022 Forli-3, and 2022 San Marino. This season, Kotov has achieved a personal-best of 18 wins, including 7 on hard courts, and had notable runs to the quarterfinals in Hong Kong and Winston-Salem. He aims to reach the second round of the ATP Masters 1000 for the third time, following his previous successes at the 2024 Madrid (reaching the third round) and Rome (reaching the second round).

Yosuke Watanuki, age 26, is ranked No. 336 in the world, with his career-high ranking being No. 72 in October 2023. He broke into the Top 200 in November 2018 and the Top 100 in July 2023. Watanuki achieved his career-best win against No. 12 Felix Auger-Aliassime at the 2023 Washington. He qualified for his first Australian Open in 2023 after 8 Grand Slam qualifying attempts and secured his first Grand Slam win against Arthur Rinderknech. Prior to that, Watanuki ended 2022 with a 10-match winning streak in Challengers, winning titles at the 2022 Kobe and 2022 Yokkaichi.

Watanuki’s first ATP Tour win came at the 2018 Tokyo tournament as a qualifier, defeating Robin Haase. He made his ATP Tour debut at the 2018 Washington as a qualifier and even had a match point against Daniil Medvedev. He reached his first ATP Tour quarterfinal as a lucky loser at the 2022 Lyon. On the junior circuit, Watanuki reached a career-high ranking of No. 2 in March 2016. He had a record of 104-39 on the ITF Junior Circuit, securing wins against other #NextGenATP players such as Alex de Minaur, Miomir Kecmanovic, Casper Ruud, and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

It’s worth noting that Watanuki comes from a tennis family, with both of his parents, Hirotsugu and Chizuru, being tennis coaches. His older brother, Keisuke, is his coach, and his other brother, Yusuke, also plays tennis.

This match will mark Watanuki’s first tour-level appearance since the Davis Cup in February, as he has been sidelined from February to September due to an ongoing injury. He is aiming to secure his first ATP Tour win since defeating Fajing Sun in the first round of this event in 2023, before eventually losing to Taylor Fritz in the second round.

My Conclusion / Prediction:

My pick is that Kotov will win.
Matchstat.com has an Artificial Intelligence (Ai) prediction model that is trained on all professional ATP and WTA past matches.

To find out who our model thinks will win for Pavel Kotov vs Yosuke Watanuki, have a look at the prediction here:

Matchstat.com Pavel Kotov vs Yosuke Watanuki prediction.