It’s the quarterfinal action when 2025 ATP Adelaide International reassembles on Thursday, January 9 as Sebastian Korda and Thanasi Kokkinakis will look to further their claims to the title. Here’s the preview, predictions and tips for these matches from Adelaide.
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Tommy Paul v Rinky Hijikata Preview
Head-to-Head: This will be the first meeting between Paul and Hijikata.
World number 12 Tommy Paul was playing his first match of the season and as one would have expected there were obvious nerves and a bit of rustiness.
It also did not help that Manuel Guinard played some solid tennis in snatches, not allowing his American opponent to run away with the match despite starting out strongly.
In the end, Paul, who had a first round, overcame Guinard 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in a match lasting an hour and 53 minutes. What would be a bit of a bother for Paul would be the 11 break-points he faced in the encounter but the other way of looking at it is he was broken just once in the match.
His opponent in this quarterfinal is the Aussie lucky loser Rinky Hijikata, who has come back from an opening round loss in Brisbane and a qualifier defeat in Adelaide to register two shocking wins.
In the first round he dropped only three games in his win over David Goffin but the greater glory was in his second round victory over Brandon Nakashima who was a 2/5 favourite going into the encounter.
Hijikata was on court for a tad over two hours before clinching it 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (5) off his very first match-point.
It’s obvious to see why a 12th-ranked player would start off an overwhelming favourite against a world number 79 here but Hijikata’s performances so far cannot be ignored. Expecting him to win at least one set.
Paul v Hijikata prediction: Set Handicap – Hijikata +1.5: 5/6
Felix Auger-Aliassime v Marcos Giron Preview
Head-to-Head: There have been five previous meetings between these North American rivals and Auger-Aliassime leads 4-1 including a win in their last meeting at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Incidentally, Giron’s only win came in their only outdoor hardcourt match which they played in 2023 in Tokyo.
At one stage about 18 months or so back, Felix Auger-Aliassime was gunning for a place in the top 5 of the ATP Rankings. Now, he is fighting to remain in the top 30.
That transition came about thanks to his rather underwhelming 2023 and 2024 seasons and it would now be up to the Canadian to turn things around. At least the pressure would be a lot lesser than it was when he was sixth in the world.
Auger-Aliassime enters this quarterfinal on the backdrop of a hard-fought, comeback-from-behind second round win over Arthur Cazaux. Despite starting out a 1/2 favourite, his rhythm plummetted in the first set and it only in the latter two that he managed to hold on to seal off a 1-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory.
He will need to do a lot better when he faces Marcos Giron, who is 2-0 on win-loss this season.
Giron was stretched to three sets in his opener by Aleksandar Vukic but was an easy, straight-set winner over Canada’s Denis Shapovalov. He might be playing against a 1/3 favourite in this quarterfinal but it might be a lot closer than that as he looks to take out a second Canadian in a row.
Auger-Aliassime v Giron prediction: Giron to win: 7/5
Miomir Kecmanovic v Benjamin Bonzi Preview
Head-to-Head: Kecmanovic and Bonzi have never faced off in a competitive match before this.
Miomir Kecmanovic had made the second round last week at the Hong Kong Open but this time around he has already taken a step further.
Facing the crowd favourite, Christopher O’Connell in his second round encounter, the Serbian player overcame early nerves to win 7-6 (1), 6-2.
Kecmanovic dropped his serve early in the match but that was the only time he was broken as he slowly came back to not just earn a break back but an easy tie-breaker win. In the second set, he survived a blast of aces from his opponent to break him two more times and clinch a place in the quarterfinal – just his second occasion of two successive wins since last year’s Wimbledon.
He will now take on the world number 70 Benjamin Bonzi who has had a bit of a solid run this season so far. The title winner at Metz last season, Bonzi has had to play the qualifiers at both, the Brisbane International last week and the Adelaide International here.
Bonzi has won all of those matches, reached the second round in Adelaide with a surprise win over Alejandro Tabilo and a quarterfinal here.
While he was aided by a Fabio Fognini injury in this competition, he was at his fighting best in overcoming James McCabe in a three-setter.
This sets up quite a fighting match-up between these two players and it could be too close to call.
Kecmanovic v Bonzi prediction: Three sets in the match: 6/5
Sebastian Korda v Thanasi Kokkinakis Preview
Head-to-Head: There have been three previous meetings between these two players and Korda has won them all. All these matches came in hardcourt competitions, two in 2022 in Indian Wells and Delray and the third in 2024 at the Washington Open.
In what was his first match of the season, Sebastian Korda came off a winner in style as he defeated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in straight sets. He won 6-3, 6-3 in an hour and 33 minutes.
Korda was at his imperious best as he slammed eight aces and held on to his serve every single time, saving all five of the break-points he faced. In turn he got the better of his opponent’s serve three times.
A finalist here in 2023 and a semifinalist last year, Korda will now have a chance to make it four wins in a row against Thanasi Kokkinakis, an Aussie who has never been ranked better than 65th on the ATP charts.
Having defeated Yoshihito Nishioka, Kokkinakis then needed three sets to edge past Tomas Martin Etcheverry. It was a match that could have gone either way and with just two break-points on show in the final set.
Kokkinakis failed to convert either but he did enough to clinch it in the ensuing tie-breaker.
He will have his work cut-out in the quarterfinal though.
Korda v Kokkinakis prediction: Korda to win: 7/10
