Khacha-back?

The Russian defends a quarter-final, we must be reassured from the first round

In what state will we find our two friends tomorrow? Khachanov did not play in Barcelona due to an injury picked up in Monte Carlo and Bautista took several MTOs in his first round. Who is the most worrying? I would tend to say Bautista because he is older and especially his back problems in R1 are not going to magically disappear in 2 days. For Khacha it's a trickier one, either he skipped Barcelona because he simply wasn't ready, or he preferred to focus on Madrid to be sure to be 100% while knowing that he has a lot of points to defend here. We'll see tomorrow, I obviously advise you to watch this match live! Let's assume that both players are at 100%, we can see that historically Bautista has often annoyed Khacha, because with his flat game it is less obvious for the Russian to generate his lift and his power. On the other hand, since 2020 it is the Russian who has taken the advantage, a defeat in Doha by cruelly lacking realism, a victory here last year by once again lacking realism, and a spanking in Marseille there a few months ago while being very realistic. Bautista has a lot of trouble on the return in general and Khacha serves extremely well, in Madrid his serve will do damage! Last year Khacha only had to save 3 break points in 3 sets, for Bautista it was 16! A trend is clearly emerging in my opinion..