Indoor HC season can't come soon enough

Mpetshi Perricard's struggles continue...

After a disappointing grass season with just a single (undeserved) win against Safiullin, the struggles continue! A loss to Vukic in Washington, before a glimmer of hope after a good match against Mochizuki in Toronto... shortly followed by a sloppy match against Rune. His match against Fritz at Wimbledon was really good, but that was with the roof on Centre Court. Wong is coming out of two straight-set qualifying wins against JM Cerundolo and Mochizuki. I found Wong to be quite good in qualifying, despite his opponents having a rather poor level.

I don't think there is a need to go through Mpetshi Perricard's playstyle in detail, since it is always the same! We will have 30+ degree weather today, and it should not be too windy, so at least that should help him out, since his game is very vulnerable to natural forces that impact it. There seem to be quite many players who have wildly different results in the US hardcourt swing and the Australian one at the start of the season. I don't think these hard-to-control balls are helpful at all for GMP's game. He already struggles a lot to keep balls in play, and combined with the slight altitude, I am quite worried for him! Maybe I am a little biased, but my memory goes back to his match in Madrid (altitude, yes, a lot higher, though)... he was playing against Navone and was extremely uncomfortable, having to take all the pace off the ball just to put it back in play... It should not be as bad here, but it could take a bit to find his return and rally here. On the other hand, his serve should be massive here, and if he can avoid the DFs he had at the completely wrong moments against Rune (Rune's SP in set 1 TB and broke himself in set 2), he could be very hard to break here! As for Wong, he has a pretty decent first serve, and I found his BH pretty good in qualifying (which is also GMP's weaker wing)... The most likely scenario for me here is that both struggle a lot on return, especially initially... GMP really has to be careful not to double fault and hand over the match too early. We have already seen a lot of double faults with these balls. As I'm sure many of you remember, Wong did beat Shelton (another Big Server) in fast conditions in Miami earlier this year...