¿Podría este partido parecerse a Tabilo vs Bergs?
Could this match resemble Tabilo vs Bergs?
So, why do I mention that match? Well, Tabilo was coming on a short turnaround from a title in Chengdu to Tokyo... His ML went from 1.70 -> 2.20 or so (Tien has gone from 1.80 -> 2.05~). He ended up dominating the match until losing a tight second-set tiebreak and then losing the match in a third-set tiebreak. My point is that it's a very common strategy to "fade" players who are coming from long tournaments in the first round. It's something very publicly known (or rather assumed). What about the player's increased confidence and desire to "keep going", is that accounted for enough by the market, or is all the focus on the "fatigue" angle? Let's try to analyze Tien's week in Beijing quickly... he faced Cerundolo, Cobolli, Musetti, Medvedev, and Sinner. That's a very tough draw... against good players with high rally tolerance! And the conditions were tough... Musetti retired, and so did Medvedev, due to cramping.
Kecmanovic has a big chance here; he was able to capitalize against a fatigued Darderi a while ago in Winston-Salem. If Tien is not able to bring a good amount of effort, his game will suffer a lot... since it's based on wearing opponents down. It's not like Medjedovic, who can play with one leg and serve bombs and hit winners from any part of the court. On the other hand, I found Kecmanovic to be really flat against Mensik... he did not play awful, but really crumbled in any key moments and honestly looked quite lazy. Therefore, a Tien who can play somewhat decently could hang on in this match due to the current form of Kecmanovic. As you can tell, it's certainly a big challenge to predict this match, since almost everything will be based on Tien's fitness...


