Entering the ATP Tour

Sakamoto is getting some matches under his belt here in Asia...

And he is coming from an excellent qualifying campaign here in Shanghai. Serving great and beating both Holt and McDonald in straight sets, not bad at all. Before that, he did the same to Walton, before losing to a great Vukic in the final QLF round. Clearly, he's getting some momentum going, and all this experience will be helpful to feel more comfortable and confident in these kinds of matches on the main tour. Last time he qualified for an ATP main tour tournament was in Miami, where he faced Alexandre Muller... a somewhat similar profile to Arnaldi (great defender). He struggled quite hard in that match despite a 6-4, 6-4 scoreline, so it'll be interesting to see if he can do better this time, with some more experience. As for Arnaldi, it's not been a great season. Almost all of his matches turn into battles, where he ends up as the loser. We can still see glimpses of the great level we know he has; it's just that he has quite major dips in every match, where he either double-faults or can't put a ball on the other side, effectively gifting a break to the opponent. He's been dealing with physical problems, and all of the losing has affected his confidence. Normally, this is the kind of match where Arnaldi is really strong against weaker players; similarly to De Minaur in a way, he is so hard to hit through and tends to just wear down lesser opponents, even if it tends not to be as straightforward as when ADM does it. He is still good at doing that, it's just that the opponents get a bit more of a chance due to his lack of form... Will Sakamoto be able to keep up his amazing serving, or will there be some regression with his 70%+ first serves in? He will really need those first serves to set up good +1s, since the longer the match goes on, the bigger the chance that Arnaldi gets into rhythm and forces him to overhit...