Alexei Popyrin vs Stan Wawrinka Prediction, Picks, Odds, H2H, July 30th

Our first preview of the day comes from the Olympic Games as we look more at Alexei Popyrin vs Stan Wawrinka. Wawrinka’s win probability comes in a tick below 50%, while Popyrin is the slight favourite to win at 1.80 odds. The handicap is 1.5 games and the total games line is 23.5. Our Popyrin vs Wawrinka prediction is below!

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Stan Wawrinka vs Alexei Popyrin Prediction: Veteran a Must Bet as Underdog

• Prediction: Wawrinka to win the 1st set & Wawrinka to win
• Best Odds: 2.00 & 2.11
• Bookmaker: bet365 & Pinnacle
• Stakes: 3/10 & 3/10

Odds updated at 1:00 am UK Time on July 30th, 2024. 

Where to begin with this one. There are so many reasons to bet on Wawrinka as an underdog here.

First, he’s the much more natural clay courter, hits with much heavier spin and possesses the attacking style to keep up with Popyrin.

Then there’s the fact that Popyrin’s entire clay resume is based on a run in Rome against poor clay courters, a title in Umag – traditionally one of the worst fields on the clay calendar – and a win against Andrey Rublev earlier this year which has aged like milk, considering anyone and everyone seems to be able to beat him these days.

Then there’s the overreaction to the opening round win against Nicolas Jarry. Yet another victory against a player completely devoid of form and who actually played through an injury, as he outlined in press:

Nico Jarry lost in R1 at the Olympics and he didn’t hide his pain due to the difficult health moment he is going through suffering from vestibular neuritis. Talking with the media he couldn’t hide his emotions and took a moment to cry.

Full story here👇🏼https://t.co/6n0rHs7bYX pic.twitter.com/0pCHfmBh4m

— Mario Boccardi (@marioboc17) July 28, 2024

None of this is all that inspiring to me and I cannot have him as the favourite.

Is there a concern the ageing Swiss is going to tire as the match progresses? Sure, but I’m happy to split my stake between him to win the first set and the entire match.

Finally, sure, the Wawrinka form isn’t stellar in terms of wins and losses, but he has played a lot of close matches against decent competition in the given conditions and he certainly didn’t expend too much energy in his opening round match against Pavel Kotocv. Our Popyrin vs Wawrinka prediction is for Stan Warinka to emerge victorious.

Stan Wawrinka Recent Form

The 38-year-old veteran has struggled of late, winning just three matches in his last four tournaments. The losses have been by the thinnest of margins though, with Monfils beating him at Wimbledon by just one break of serve over three sets, Kotov needing four sets (with two of the sets being tiebreak wins) at this venue and Lukas Klein getting him in a tight 7-5 third sets in the altitude of Gstaad.

At the very least, he’s making all these matches competitive. Oddly enough, his wins have all been fairly routine affairs.

With Popyrin not the most adept returner, Wawrinka still packing plenty of punch, the points not likely to be that long between two guys that don’t thrive in longer rallies and the superior clay court game Wawrinka possesses, I make him a solid favourite in this encounter.

Alexei Popyrin Recent Form

The grass season offered a brief reprieve for Popyrin as he found a few wins here and there (though some were against clay court centric opponents), but the clay season was not kind to him. After Wimbledon he jumped back onto the dirt to get ready for the Olympics and lost to a middling Challenger Tour prospect and then was pummelled by the talented Jakub Mensik.

As mentioned, the first win here was a nice turn of events, but it came in a close contest with an injured player who was nearly in tears afterwards when addressing the media.

His game has the power to serve and hit through the dirt, but he lacks spin and margin to give him any kind of consistency. That’s the primary reason he’s struggled so much so far and is one of the reasons I like his opponent here.

Alexei Popyrin vs Stan Wawrinka H2H – Stat of the Match

The only prior match between these two saw Popyrin come away with the win from a set down. Oddly enough, it was in that aforementioned Umag title run last season.

We’ll see if Wawrinka can level the score.

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