Lu vs Khachanov prediction

Yen Hsun Lu takes on Karen Khachanov in the first round of ATP tournament in Auckland. Lu has a good score on hard surface, he even had some good episodes on this tournament in the past, his best result on this tournament is final in 2014 when he lost to Isner. Anyway Lu is not playing his best at this moment. Last year he mostly played on challengers where he had success and won some tournaments, but on ATP tour he had a very poor results, only managed to reach quarter final in Winston Salem while he didn’t go further than 2nd round on any other ATP tournament. He also started this season with a poor performance in Chennai where he lost to Medvedev in straight sets in the second round. Khachanov on the other hand made a big progress in last season. He reached 51st place on ATP rankings which is his best ranking so far and I think this season he could make a breakthrough to top 30. He is a good server, prefer faster surface, last season he managed to beat some top 30 players and even won an ATP tournament in Chengdu. He has a huge potential and I expect a lot of good results from him this season. He has played in Doha last week where he beat Zayid and lost to Karlovic in two tiebreaks. Here he has easier opponent, IMO he is playing on higher level than Lu at this moment so I expect his win.