Tennis
2026-01-21 - Tommy Paul vs Thiago Agustin Tirante
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
Tennis : Australian Open Second Round
Wednesday 21st January 2025 - Scheduled 11am
12am (British Time)
Preview
Three years ago he made the Semi Final here in Melbourne and Tommy Paul was able to work his way through to the Quarter Final last year. He won his First Round match in the 2026 tournament with something to spare and the American looks good to make it through to the Third Round again.
Six months ago, Tommy Paul was inside the top 10 of the World Rankings, but he begins this event as the World Number 20 after a relatively quiet second half of the 2025 season.
A run to the Adelaide Semi Final in the warm up to the Australian Open will have given Tommy Paul some confidence and he should have the quality of hard court tennis to beat this opponent.
Thiago Agustin Tirante may be most happy on a clay court, but he is just outside of the top 100 of the World Rankings after putting a solid year on the board on this surface.
However, the majority of those matches on the hard courts were played at Challenger or Qualifier level and this is a significant step upwards in terms of level of opponent. The serve could be an important weapon, although Tirante is facing someone who has been able to get into return games very effectively on this surface.
Tommy Paul has produced some very solid numbers against players Ranked outside the top 50 over the last twelve months- he has not only held 91% of service games played in those hard court matches, but Paul has broken in 27% of return games and he will look to put the pressure on Thiago Agustin Tirante in this one.
The break percentage moves up to 33% when only focusing on matches against players outside of the top 100 and Tommy Paul can back up the First Round win with a similar margin of victory.
Prediction
Lay the games with the higher Ranked player in this Second Round match.
The Pick :
Tommy Paul 3-0 Thiago Agustin Tirante
BEST BETTING TIP :
I'll back Tommy Paul - 7.5 Games at 2.00 with Bet365
