Youth vs Experience

What a year Budkov Kjaer is having...

Nicolai is coming straight from three consecutive indoor hardcourt challengers in France... he won one and made the quarterfinals in the other two. I haven't been watching his challenger matches, but he is having a lot of dominant scorelines in straight sets. I did watch him play in Båstad against Seyboth Wild and Monteiro and found him to be quite solid, with a good backhand. Cilic has been struggling a bit lately, but at least we saw some encouraging stuff in a tight defeat to Djokovic in Shanghai. It's always quite hard to judge how a player coming off a lot of success on the Challenger Tour will do on the main tour, against higher-level opponents. Nava was absolutely tearing it up on the Challenger Tour earlier this year and managed to have quite a decent run on the main tour, in the American hardcourt swing. And yes, in the few matches we have seen from Budskov Kjaer at the ATP level as well as Davis Cup, he has managed to be very competitive. My main concern for Nicolai would be if Cilic can get into rhythm and start to dictate, especially targeting the Norwegian's forehand. Cilic struggles the most against Attacking Baseliners, which prevents him from taking control of the match; he tends to do very well against more passive players...