Local favourite Thomaz Bellucci gets his campaign underway at the ATP Challenger Tour Finals against big serving Bobby Reynolds on Wednesday.
Ranked 37 in the world Bellucci was awarded a wildcard by the tournament organisers and is top seed by some distance. The rest of the field are all regulars on the challenger tour while Bellucci struts his stuff around the more glamorous venues on the ATP circuit but when speaking to the press on Tuesday, Bellucci insisted that he doesn't consider himself the favourite.
"It's a different tournament compared to the others and that's why even though I have a better ranking, I don't think I'm favourite to win the title", he said. "All these players come from strong competitions and most of them are hard-court players."
It's not surprising that the Brazilian isn't particularly confident as he's lost eight of his past nine matches going back to the start of August and he prefers slower clay.
He's likely to get a tough working over on Wednesday evening from Reynolds who's a big server and has made four challenger finals on hard courts this year.
Prediction: Bellucci in three.
