Felix Auger-Aliassime has an interesting match coming up in Basel. The Canadian will face Alexander Shevchenko at the 2023 Swiss Indoors event, a 500-series event on tour. This will be a quarterfinal match in the tournament, with pretty good ranking points waiting for the players who make the late round. My Auger-Aliassime vs Shevchenko prediction is that the former will win to advance to the semifinals.
Schedule of Play: Right-click/Open in the New Tab to check match times: subject to change
Felix Auger-Aliassime vs Alexander Shevchenko Head-to-Head Series
These two players have not faced one another before. The match holds some intrigue, in part, because Auger-Aliassime has struggled a lot lately. He is the betting favorite at -275 to win this match. However, tennis fans should have a look at his recent results.
Auger-Aliassime has not done significant damage in any draw since Indian Wells. He has numerous losses to players ranked well below him. While the Canadian did put multiple wins together in Tokyo last week, his efforts culminated in a crashing out to Marcos Giron. In Basel this week, Aliassime is coming out of a weak section of the draw. He beat a Wild Card and a qualifier through the first two rounds. You could remain skeptical of the Canadian right now.
Yet, Alexander Shevchenko is ranked just 83rd in the world. He does stand to jump up some 20 rungs in the rankings on Monday, even if he does no better than the quarterfinals in Basel. That would be a new career-high ranking for him.
Such players, ones that are at their career high, are often dangerous. Some of them are playing at a much higher level than what their ranking suggests. In some cases, it just takes a while before the yearlong rankings start to reflect the higher level that they’ve achieved in the shorter term.
But a huge problem with Shevchenko is that he came through qualifiers in Basel. That means he is playing in his 5th match at the 2023 Swiss Indoors. He did win five matches at a challenger in Madrid earlier this season but the challengers aren’t loaded with talent.
Shevchenko also played two matches last week in Antwerp. When he faces Auger-Aliassime, Shevchenko will be playing his 7th match in 11 days. That’s a lot for a player who has never been in the Top 50 before. It will put his conditioning to the test.
The Draw: Right-click/Open in the New Tab for the draw for the 2023 Swiss Indoors Basel
Auger-Aliassime vs Shevchenko Prediction: A-A wins
In a nutshell, this match is between a slumping Top 20 player, Auger-Aliassime, and a surging peripheral player — but one who must be tiring. Shevchenko played 39 games in his last match, the maximum possible in a best-of-three-set tennis match. There were 268 points in the match, which is tons and that doesn’t even look at the four other matches he has played in Basel. Meanwhile, Auger-Aliassime has played in just 209 points in the entire tournament so far.
This should be a cakewalk for the Canadian. It would be discrediting for him to lose this match in some ways. There has been a little more pep in his game in the last two weeks than for most of this season. My recommendation is the moneyline at -275 (bet365). If Auger-Aliassime loses the first set, then chances are Shevchenko just has nothing left in the tank late in this match. It feels like a pretty safe moneyline bet.
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