Deceptively Simple

Kecmanovic lost in Munich, but on hardcourts, he has a significant advantage... right?

OK, so Darderi gets a hardcourt win under his belt, after his clay dominance in Båstad and Umag. His stats on paper against McDonald look quite good... 22 aces/5 DFs and 49w/36ue ratio. If you watched the match... You will know that it was a really messy one! The level of returning in the match was atrocious, you could have put two statues to return and the result would not have been so different... Darderi gave McDonald a lot of free space to hit aces, due to the way he positioned himself on return, and when he made contact with the ball, it usually sailed a couple of meters long. McDonald looked rather sluggish and was not particularly active on return, but I will say that Darderi's serve quality was decent, at least. The game consisted almost entirely of serves and +1 FHs; the rallying quality was really low, and both players struggled significantly with their backhands. Darderi was on his way to win in straight sets, but missed an absolute sitter at the net in the second set TB, so it went into a decider. Darderi starts the third set off by saving 0-40 on his own serve and manages to win it in the end! There are a lot of details, but I wanted to include them since it perfectly shows how good Darderi is at "winning ugly". What about Kecmanovic? I will keep that a lot shorter, since there isn't much for me to say about it... he played solid tennis and was able to exploit Kovacevic's one-hander (as so many others have done).

We have had some recent meetings between Darderi and Kecmanovic. They faced this year in Munich, where Darderi clawed his way back with a set 2 TB win before taking the decider. Last year, they had a meeting on hardcourt in Hong Kong where Kecmanovic won quite easily, 6-3, 6-3. Kecmanovic is definitely more comfortable on hardcourts... Darderi's game is dangerous anywhere, but it's quite clear that clay is still his best surface by far. My issue with Kecmanovic is that he struggles particularly against players who serve big and play attacking tennis; it's his worst matchup, without a doubt. And that's the way Darderi is playing currently, bombing serves and just hammering forehands. Based on their first match, I would still give Kecmanovic a decent-sized advantage, but I want to remain cautious due to the matchup and Darderi's ability to elevate his level... If it comes down to the wire, Darderi will have the advantage with his confidence and clutchness!