Naoki Nakagawa and Michael Zheng will clash against each other in the qualifications of the Chicago Challenger for the 1st time in their career. They are scheduled to compete on Monday at 11:00 am on COURT 1. In this post, we analyze their head to head performance and prediction.
Prediction, odds and live streaming
The pick for Tennis Tonic is Naoki Nakagawa who should win in 3 sets.
As per the initial odds, Naoki Nakagawa is the pick to win this match.
Naoki Nakagawa -> 1.74
Michael Zheng -> 2.02
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Prediction and head to head Naoki Nakagawa vs. Michael Zheng
There is no head to head record between Naoki Nakagawa and Michael Zheng since this will be the first time that they will square off in the main tour.
Naoki Nakagawa
| Year | Total | Hard | Clay | I.hard | Grass | Carpet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 8-5 | 5-5 | 0-0 | 3-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2023 | 43-23 | 42-19 | 1-3 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2022 | 31-27 | 16-16 | 10-9 | 5-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2021 | 34-15 | 32-13 | 2-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2020 | 14-4 | 14-4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
Ranked no. 411, Nakagawa got to the qualifications after beating Clement Chidekh 6-3 6-2.
In the qualifications, Naoki had a good straight sets win against Chidekh (6-3 6-2). During the match, Nakagawa scored 58 points vs Chidekh’s 42. The Japanese was very aggressive to blast 23 winners.
Talking about the service games, Nakagawa blasted 11 aces and he committed only 2 double faults. Naoki Nakagawa was pretty effective on serve to win 88% (23/26) of his 1st serve and 52% (12/23) on the second serve. This was the main reason for not conceding a single break during the match. Naoki broke Chidekh 4 times after converting 80% of his break points (4/5).
Nakagawa has a solid match record in the last 10 years having won 61% of his matches (265-171). 5-4 on hard in 2024. Talking about his performance on the same surface of this competition, Nakagawa has a compiled 165-103 win-loss record in the last years on hard.
Nakagawa’s best result of the current season was reaching the semifinal in M25 Changwon and M15 Tokyo.
Nakagawa has an aggregate 8-4 win-loss record in 2024, 5-4 on hard (See FULL STATS).
Previously in the Chicago Challenger
Naoki has never competed in this tournament before.
Michael Zheng
| Year | Total | Hard | Clay | I.hard | Grass | Carpet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 2-3 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2023 | 13-11 | 13-10 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2022 | 11-6 | 2-1 | 9-5 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2021 | 7-5 | 1-1 | 3-2 | 3-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
Ranked no. 554, Michael reached the qualifications after defeating Luke Saville 6-3 6-1.
In the qualifications, Zheng had a good straight sets win against Saville (6-3 6-1). During the match Zheng scored 61 points vs Saville’s 42. Zheng was very aggressive to blast 19 winners.
About the serving games, Zheng made 6 aces and he committed only 2 double faults. Michael Zheng was extremely efficient on serve to win 86% (19/22) of his 1st serve and 62% (16/26) on the second serve. This was the main reason for not conceding a single break during the match. Zheng broke Saville 4 times after converting 40% of his break points (4/10).
Zheng has an overall 1-3 win-loss record in 2024, 1-2 on hard (See FULL STATS).
Previously in the Chicago Challenger
Previously, his best result was reaching the qualifications in 2023. See his history.
H2H Performance in the tournament
Matches, sets, games and points
| Points | Nakagawa | Zheng |
|---|---|---|
| Match played | 1 | 1 |
| Tot Set | 2 | 2 |
| Tot Games | 17 | 16 |
| Pts | 58-42 | 61-42 |
| Total Points | 100 | 103 |
| Winners | 23 | 19 |
| %Winners | 40% | 31% |
Both Nakagawa and Zheng played 1 match. Also both players started their run from the qualifications.Both players have not surrendered a single set in this event so far. Talking about their workload, Nakagawa and Zheng have played the same amount of sets 2. However, Nakagawa played 1 game more than Zheng. Naoki scored 23 winners (40% of the total points). On the other side, Zheng struck 19 winners (31%).
Serve Performance
| Serve | Nakagawa | Zheng |
|---|---|---|
| Aces | 11 | 6 |
| Avg per match | 11 | 6 |
| 1st in | 26/49 | 22/48 |
| %1st in | 53% | 46% |
| 1st pts | 23/26 | 19/22 |
| %1st pts | 88% | 86% |
| 2nd pts | 12/23 | 16/26 |
| %2nd pts | 52% | 62% |
Nakagawa recorded 11 aces . Zheng recorded 6 aces . Nakagawa won 88% points on his first serve. He pretty solid on his second serve to win 52% of the points. On the other side, Zheng won 86% of the points behind his first serve. He had a solid display on his second serve to win 62% of the points.
How they played the important points
| Breaks | Nakagawa | Zheng |
|---|---|---|
| Won | 4 | 4 |
| Converted | 4/5 | 4/10 |
| % Converted | 80% | 40% |
| Conceded | 4 | 1 |
| Saved | 4 | 1 |
| % Saved | 100% | 100% |
| Times Broken | 0 | 0 |
Nakagawa broke his opponent 4 times with a 80% conversion rate. Naoki pretty effective on his serve as he has never conceded a single service game after saving 4 break points. Michael broke his opponent 4 times with a 40% conversion rate. Michael was rock solid on his serve as he has never conceded a single service game after saving 1 break points.
| Nakagawa | |||
| Q1 Chidekh |
Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 6-3 6-2 | ||
| Tot Set | 2 | 2 | |
| Tot Games | 17 | 17 | |
| pts | 58-42 | 58-42 | |
| Total points | 100 | 100 | |
| Winners | 23 | 23 | |
| %Winners | 40% | 40% | |
| SERVE | |||
| Aces | 11 | 11 | |
| Double Faults | 2 | 2 | |
| 1st in | 26/49 | 26/49 | |
| % 1st in | 53% | 53% | |
| 1st pts | 23/26 | 23/26 | |
| % 1st pts | 88% | 88% | |
| 2nd pts | 12/23 | 12/23 | |
| % 2nd pts | 52% | 52% | |
| Breaks | |||
| Won | 4 | 4 | |
| Converted | 4/5 | 4/5 | |
| Converted % | 80% | 80% | |
| Conceded | 4 | 4 | |
| Saved | 4/4 | 4 | |
| Saved % | 100% | 100% | |
| Times Broken | 0 | 0 | |
| Zheng | |||
| Q1 Saville |
Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 6-3 6-1 | ||
| Tot Set | 2 | 2 | |
| Tot Games | 16 | 16 | |
| pts | 61-42 | 61-42 | |
| Total points | 103 | 103 | |
| Winners | 19 | 19 | |
| %Winners | 31% | 31% | |
| SERVE | |||
| Aces | 6 | 6 | |
| Double Faults | 2 | 2 | |
| 1st in | 22/48 | 22/48 | |
| % 1st in | 46% | 46% | |
| 1st pts | 19/22 | 19/22 | |
| % 1st pts | 86% | 86% | |
| 2nd pts | 16/26 | 16/26 | |
| % 2nd pts | 62% | 62% | |
| Breaks | |||
| Won | 4 | 4 | |
| Converted | 4/10 | 4/10 | |
| Converted % | 40% | 40% | |
| Conceded | 1 | 1 | |
| Saved | 1/1 | 1 | |
| Saved % | 100% | 100% | |
| Times Broken | 0 | 0 | |
Head 2 Head
LWWWWLWWWL
WWLLL 
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