Marin Cilic vs Zachary Svajda Prediction, Stats, Form, H2H, 17/9/24

We’ll begin our ATP main tour previews for the week with a look-ahead to a match from the Hangzhou Open as we look at Marin Cilic vs Zachary Svajda.

Svajda’s win probability is 52%, while Cilic is favored to win at 1.91 odds. The handicap is 0.5 games and the total games line is 22.5.

For more daily tennis tips, visit the bettingexpert community, but if you want more expert tips from Jon Reid, visit our Expert Insights section.

Our Cilic vs Svajda prediction is for Cilic to win.

Marin Cilic vs Zachary Svajda Prediction

• Prediction: Cilic to win
• Best Odds: 1.91
• Bookmaker: bet365
• Stakes: 4/10

Odds updated at 1:45 am UK Time on September 17th, 2024. 

Cilic isn’t just leagues better than Svajda, but his game is far more imposing and well-suited to quicker courts. Further, at this stage in his return from injury, one of the bigger concerns for the Croatian is probably the physicality of tour-level matches. Quicker courts in this part of the world generally help keep points shorter, which alleviates that concern – especially considering Cilic has a serve that can generate a slew of cheap points.

Svajda is a quality player, but he’s never really proven himself above the Challenger Tour level and he’ll be at a massive deficit in terms of being able to generate offense.

I’m not saying Cilic is back to playing at his best, especially given his age, but I certainly wouldn’t downgrade him enough to be a coin flip with the underpowered American. If you’re concerned about his physicality, perhaps the first set line is more suitable for you, but I do think there’s plenty of value in backing the veteran here.

Marin Cilic Recent Form

Though he’s been gone since Buenos Aires back in February, it’s not like this is the first match back for Cilic. It is on the main circuit, but he’s played a pair of Challenger Tour tournaments, going 3-2 as he works his way back into shape, with one loss coming in three sets to an in-form Duje Ajdukovic.

I don’t think anything is discouraging about his results to this point and I’m excited to see how he fares in his return to the main tour.

Style-wise, Cilic has one of the bigger serves you’ll find and that should be an even bigger advantage than normal during the next month where the courts will tend to play a bit quicker.

The bigger question is how many chances he can generate on return. I still back him to find enough to come away with the win though.

Zachary Svajda Recent Form

Other than a win against Francisco Cerundolo off of his preferred surface, I’m not sure what part of Svajda’s recent form would inspire someone to bet him at a coin-flip kind of price.

He has a lot of losses in a fairly decisive fashion to good players and a slew of wins against much worse opposition than someone like Cilic.

I can’t give him a 50-50 kind of chance here and am happy to oppose him.

Marin Cilic vs Zachary Svajda H2H – Stat of the Match

Cilic and Svajda have yet to run into each other. Not surprising with Cilic spending the last several years playing the biggest events the sport has to offer and Svajda struggling to crack the main tour at all.

Safer Gambling

At bettingexpert, we always take a safe approach to gambling. We’ll never bet more than we can afford or chase losses. For more advice, head to our Safer Gambling hub.