Lucky Number Five?

McDonald has won all four meetings, 9-1 in sets...

Well, Basilashvili has fought his way through the qualifiers with two wins in deciding sets, followed by another win against lucky loser Billy Harris. He can be dangerous in these conditions with his ballbashing, and as Elie mentioned in an earlier preview with Basilashvili, he might be a bit extra motivated, hunting some points to get into Grand Slam main draw territory. McDonald has taken the same path through qualifying before beating Botic in his first main draw match. He almost blew a 5-1 lead in the decider, but managed to stabilize just in time. He is really bad at closing out sets/matches...

So yes, I think we can confirm that this is not a good matchup for Basil. McDonald is great when facing players who are one-dimensional; he can absorb their pace and is usually more rally tolerant, moving better (he struggles more with tricky players, as seen in his recent match against Moutet). We can also see that the well-balanced players who move well and hit flat are really good here, look at Giron and Taro Daniel as well. I'm not sure how much it matters, but Mackie is also half-Chinese, so perhaps he enjoys himself a bit extra here! Anyway, the question we need to ask ourselves is what can Basil do to change the outcome of this specific match? I'm not quite sure, honestly. He doesn't have many options. If Plan A, which is to hit the ball HARD, does not work... Plan B is to hit it HARDER! He lacks the tools to execute many other game plans, which makes it difficult! He could just have a good day and hit lines, combined with Mackie not being his best... but I would need good odds for Basil to take that risk; otherwise, I can only look toward Mackie to get win number five.