Nicolai Budkov Kjaer and Ivan Gakhov will face off in the 2^nd round of the Murcia Challenger for the 1^st time in their career. They are scheduled to play on Thursday at 2:30 pm on PISTA CENTRAL. In the following lines you can find the head to head analysis and prediction.

Prediction, odds and live streaming

The pick for Tennis Tonic is Nicolai Budkov Kjaer who should win in 3 sets.

As per the initial odds, Nicolai Budkov Kjaer is the pick to win this match.
Nicolai Budkov Kjaer -> 1.55
Ivan Gakhov -> 2.33

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Prediction and head to head Nicolai Budkov Kjaer vs. Ivan Gakhov

There is no head to head record between Nicolai Budkov Kjaer and Ivan Gakhov since this will be the first time that they will square off in the main tour.

Nicolai Budkov Kjaer

Ranked no. 306, the Norwegian reached the 2^nd round after beating Javier Barranco Cosano 6-2 6-1.

In the 1^st round, Nicolai had a good straight sets win against Barranco Cosano (6-2 6-1). During the match, Budkov Kjaer scored 72 points vs Barranco Cosano’s 48. Nicolai was extremely aggressive to blast 24 winners.

Regarding the service games, Budkov Kjaer made 2 aces and he committed only 1 double fault. Nicolai Budkov Kjaer lost the serve once. Furthermore, Budkov Kjaer put 70% of his first serves in, winning 69% (24/35) of the points behind his 1st serve and 67% (10/15) on the 2nd serve. The Norwegian broke Barranco Cosano 5 times after converting 42% of his break points (5/12).

Budkov Kjaer has a solid record in the last 3 years having won 67% of his matches (39-19). 1-0 on clay in 2025. Regarding his performance on the same surface of this event, Budkov Kjaer has an aggregate20-7 win-loss record in the last 3 years on clay.

His best result of the year was winning the title the Glasgow Challenger where he beat Viktor Durasovic in the final 6-4 6-3.

The Norwegian has an overall 13-6 win-loss record in 2025, 1-0 on clay (See FULL STATS).

Previously in the Murcia Challenger

The Norwegian has never competed in this tournament before.

Ivan Gakhov

Ranked no. 318, Ivan got to the 2^nd round after defeating Pablo Carreno-Busta 6-3 6-4.

In the 1^st round, Gakhov had a good straight sets win against Carreno-Busta (6-3 6-4). During the match Gakhov scored 67 points vs Carreno-Busta’s 56. The Russian was pretty aggressive to blast 29 winners.

Talking about serving, Gakhov blasted 5 aces and he committed only 2 double faults. Overall, Ivan Gakhov was pretty effective on serve to win 74% (29/39) of his 1st serve and 52% (11/21) on the second serve. However, this didn’t prevent his to concede the serve once. Gakhov broke Carreno-Busta 3 times after converting 50% of his break points (3/6).

The Russian has an aggregate 8-7 win-loss record in 2025, 1-1 on clay (See FULL STATS).

Previously in the Murcia Challenger

Previously, his best result was reaching the semifinal in 2022. See his history.

H2H Performance in the tournament

Matches, sets, games and points

Points	Budkov Kjaer	Gakhov
Match played	1	1
Tot Set	2	2
Tot Games	15	19
Pts	72-48	67-56
Total Points	120	123
Winners	24	29
%Winners	33%	43%

Both Budkov Kjaer and Gakhov played 1 match. Both players have not lost a single set in this event so far. Talking about their workload, Budkov Kjaer and Gakhov have played the same amount of sets 2. However, Budkov Kjaer played 4 games less than Gakhov. Budkov Kjaer scored 24 winners (33% of the total points). On the other side, Ivan made 29 winners (43%).

Serve Performance

Serve	Budkov Kjaer	Gakhov
Aces	2	5
Avg per match	2	5
1st in	35/50	39/60
%1st in	70%	65%
1st pts	24/35	29/39
%1st pts	69%	74%
2nd pts	10/15	11/21
%2nd pts	67%	52%

Budkov Kjaer recorded 2 aces . Gakhov recorded 5 aces . Budkov Kjaer won 69% points on his first serve. He pretty effective on his second serve to win 67% of the points. On the other side, Gakhov won 74% of the points behind his first serve. He had a solid display on his second serve to win 52% of the points.

How they played the important points

Breaks	Budkov Kjaer	Gakhov
Won	5	3
Converted	5/12	3/6
% Converted	42%	50%
Conceded	1	3
Saved	0	2
% Saved	0%	67%
Times Broken	1	1

Budkov Kjaer broke his opponent 5 times with a 42% conversion rate. Nicolai surrendered his serve once and he saved 0% of the break points that he conceded. The Russian broke his opponent 3 times with a 50% conversion rate. Ivan conceded his serve once and he saved 67% of the break points that he conceded.

Budkov Kjaer
	R1 Barranco Cosano	Total
Score	6-2 6-1
Tot Set	2	2
Tot Games	15	15
pts	72-48	72-48
Total points	120	120
Winners	24	24
%Winners	33%	33%
SERVE
Aces	2	2
Double Faults	1	1
1st in	35/50	35/50
% 1st in	70%	70%
1st pts	24/35	24/35
% 1st pts	69%	69%
2nd pts	10/15	10/15
% 2nd pts	67%	67%
Breaks
Won	5	5
Converted	5/12	5/12
Converted %	42%	42%
Conceded	1	1
Saved	0/1	0
Saved %	0%	0%
Times Broken	1	1

Gakhov
	R1 Carreno-Busta	Total
Score	6-3 6-4
Tot Set	2	2
Tot Games	19	19
pts	67-56	67-56
Total points	123	123
Winners	29	29
%Winners	43%	43%
SERVE
Aces	5	5
Double Faults	2	2
1st in	39/60	39/60
% 1st in	65%	65%
1st pts	29/39	29/39
% 1st pts	74%	74%
2nd pts	11/21	11/21
% 2nd pts	52%	52%
Breaks
Won	3	3
Converted	3/6	3/6
Converted %	50%	50%
Conceded	3	3
Saved	2/3	2
Saved %	67%	67%
Times Broken	1	1

Tennis Scores in Murcia Challenger

• Ivan GakhovGakhov – Pablo Carreno-BustaCarreno-Busta (6-3 6-4) – See score progression
• Kyrian JacquetJacquet – Nicolas Alvarez VaronaAlvarez Varona (6-3 7-6⁴) – See score progression
• Carlos TabernerTaberner – Vilius GaubasGaubas (7-5 3-6 6-1) – See score progression
• Albert Ramos-VinolasRamos-Vinolas – Bernabe Zapata MirallesZapata Miralles (3-6 6-4 6-3) – See score progression
• Denis YevseyevYevseyev – Justin EngelEngel (6-4 6-7⁵ 6-4) – See score progression
• Jesper De JongDe Jong – Andrea PellegrinoPellegrino (6-3 6-3) – See score progression
• Kimmer CoppejansCoppejans – Sebastian OfnerOfner (6-1 6-7⁴ 6-3) – See score progression
• Pablo Llamas RuizLlamas Ruiz – Sumit NagalNagal (6-4 6-1) – See score progression
• Raul Brancaccio/Andrea PellegrinoBrancaccio/Andrea Pellegrino – Daniel Cukierman/Joshua ParisCukierman/Joshua Paris (6-3 6-7⁶ 10-6) – See score progression
• Nicolai Budkov KjaerBudkov Kjaer – Javier Barranco CosanoBarranco Cosano (6-2 6-1) – See score progression
• Daniel RinconRincon – Gabriele PennafortiPennaforti (6-0 6-3) – See score progression
• Daniel Merida AguilarMerida Aguilar – Marin CilicCilic (6-2 6-4) – See score progression
• Valentin VacherotVacherot – Raul BrancaccioBrancaccio (7-6³ 6-7⁶ 6-3) – See score progression
• Elmer MollerMoller – Miguel DamasDamas (4-6 7-5 6-4) – See score progression
• Benjamin HassanHassan – Ugo BlanchetBlanchet (6-4 6-7² 6-3) – See score progression
• Harold MayotMayot – Edas ButvilasButvilas (6-4 4-6 7-5) – See score progression
• Marton FucsovicsFucsovics – Henrique RochaRocha (6-2 6-3) – See score progression

Upcoming matches in the draw

• Marton FucsovicsFucsovics – Benjamin HassanHassan (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Kimmer CoppejansCoppejans – (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Carlos TabernerTaberner – (1-0) – H2H and prediction
• Valentin VacherotVacherot – Jesper De JongDe Jong (1-0) – H2H and prediction
• Harold MayotMayot – Albert Ramos-VinolasRamos-Vinolas (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Kyrian JacquetJacquet – Denis YevseyevYevseyev (1-0) – H2H and prediction