Emil Ruusuvuori
Finnish No. 1 Emil Ruusuvuori takes on Australian qualifier Christopher O’Connell in the round of 32 of the Dubai Tennis Championships on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old began the campaign with a second-round exit in the Maharashtra Open. In the Adelaide International 2, Ruusuvuori was ousted by Mikael Ymer in the first round. The Australian Open followed where Ruusuvuori made it to the second round for the second time in his career. He lost to Andrey Rublev. In Montpellier, Ruusuvuori was beaten by Maxime Cressy in the second round. The ATP Rotterdam Open campaign wasn’t a memorable one either as he lost to top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round.
Before arriving in Dubai, Ruusuvuori plied his trade in the Qatar Open. After beating 6th seed Dan Evans in the first round, the youngster lost to Jiri Lehechka in the following round.
The 28-year-old did not have a great start to the season either. He had zero wins in the main draw of ATP events heading into the recently-concluded Qatar Open. However, he managed to have a decent campaign in the ATP 500 event, defeating the likes of Fernando Verdasco and Roberto Bautista Agut en route to the quarterfinals. O’Connell was eventually beaten by Daniil Medvedev.
O’Connell eased past Kareem Allaf in the first round of qualifying 6-3, 6-4. He went on to defeat Quentin Halys in two competitive sets 7-6, 7-6 to punch his ticket to the main draw.
This will be the first meeting between Emil Ruusuvuori and Christopher O’Connell and therefore, the head-to-head scoreline currently stands at 0-0.
Prediction: Emil Ruusuvuori to win in three sets.
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