Heavy Aggression

After blasting through qualifying, Smith now faces a tougher task...

Smith is coming from a QLF run with very dominant scorelines! I have a few points I'd like to note about his matches... He plays with a lot of aggression, serving big and looking to rush his opponents, which he does really well. Schoolkate was unable to handle it, and so was Basilashvili (he prefers to wind up his big groundstrokes). Being able to rush opponents is a big plus in these conditions in Cincinnati... I would like to add that I found the level of both Schoolkate and Basilashvili to be poor, with both serving below 50% first serves (Smith was around 60-70% himself in the matches). Smith had an MTO for his in the first match, just something to keep in mind. Marozsan managed to win two matches in Toronto, one against Hugo Dellien and the other against Auger-Aliassime, in tough and windy conditions. He was outplayed by Cobolli in the third round, despite taking a set. Despite his wins, I would say he is not playing at his best level, and as usual, there are a lot of unforced errors!

Both players play quite aggressively, and Marozsan can struggle when he is rushed. I don't think the matchup is that bad for Smith; he would struggle more against someone with a higher rally tolerance in these conditions (like Tien, whom he lost to in Toronto). Despite the fact that Marozsan can get rushed himself, I find him better in this kind of matchup compared to against a Solid Baseliner with more rally tolerance. Marozsan can be a bit unreliable due to his playstyle, but perhaps contrary to popular belief, he tends to do quite well against the players he should beat; most of them struggle to handle his game. I also want to cut him a bit of slack for his loss to Cobolli, we saw that Cobolli played very well against a Shelton who is now in the final...