Tennis
2026-01-18 - Alexander Zverev vs Gabriel Diallo
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Tennis : Australian Open First Round
Sunday 18th January 2025 - Scheduled 1:30pm
2:30am (British Time)
Preview
It would be harsh to suggest the window has closed for Alexander Zverev in his bid to win a maiden Grand Slam title, but the World Number 3 feels like he is a big step behind the top two players in the world.
Plenty of Semi Final runs and a few Final appearances scattered in would represent a hugely successful season for some, but Alexander Zverev has long been spoken about a potential Major winner and has come up short. That includes twelve months ago here in Melbourne when he was beaten in straight sets by Jannik Sinner in the Final, and Zverev will be very disappointed that the rest of 2025 ended with just one more Major Quarter Final run.
Some thoughts will already have turned to the potential showdowns with Carlos Alcaraz and/or Jannik Sinner, but Alexander Zverev has to make sure he does not overlook any opponent.
First up is a match against Gabriel Diallo, who is the World Number 41 and represents about as stiff a challenge as any Seeded player could have had in the opening Round.
A few months ago Gabriel Diallo would have been close to being a Seeded player, but his form has dropped off and he is 1-2 on the hard courts to open this season.
The serve is going to be the key for the Canadian- he will need to serve well and see if he can put some pressure on Alexander Zverev, although the problem for Gabriel Diallo is that he does not have the most productive of return games on this surface.
It has built up some pressure on Gabriel Diallo when facing top 50 Ranked opponents on the hard courts over the last twelve months and contributed to the 4-11 record.
This becomes 0-8 when only considering matches against top 20 Ranked opponents and Gabriel Diallo has held 71% of service games played in those and broken in just shy of 10% of return games. As you can imagine, that has led to some very one-sided defeats and Gabriel Diallo will have to begin fast to build confidence in his bid to at least give Alexander Zverev something to think about.
Alexander Zverev has won eighteen of the last twenty hard court matches against players Ranked outside of the top 20 and he has held 91% of service games played in those twenty matches.
It has allowed the World Number 3 to play with a bit more aggression on the return and the feeling is that he can find the breaks of serve to clear this spread after perhaps needing to come through some early difficulties.
Prediction
Bridging the gap to the top two will be difficult and it is very important for the World Number 3 to avoid being pushed in the early Rounds in Grand Slam events.
While this is not going to be easy, Alexander Zverev can wear down his opponent with the superior serving expected.
The Pick :
Alexander Zverev 3-0 Gabriel Diallo
