Blanchet riding the momentum of the French?

Since his huge US Open, Ugo hasn't really followed up. but I'm not worried...

I mostly know Ugo from his matches at Roland and the US Open this season, so I’m taking this with a grain of salt. With Marcos, we picked up on a counterpunch-friendly style with a pretty complete game, without a huge weapon either. He notably beats Gojo, Marozsan, and Mensik, which backs up our thinking, and loses to Machac, Echargui, Comesana… guys who are very mobile and solid from the baseline. Now he’s up against old man Duckworth, a.k.a. the ugly duckling. Right off the bat, the Aussie’s grit puts me off in terms of matchup for Ugo. Duckworth can hit a bit, but he’s mostly known as a grinder. I think these are two profiles that like to face the same kind of opponent: attackers who are a bit error-prone. It’s been a while since I’ve watched both players, but what I can say is Duckworth’s Asia swing was pretty rough results-wise (4 matches, 4 losses), yet all super tight losses. And now he beats Kukushkin in 3 sets in Q2. I caught some of Kukushkin’s Q1 match, and the Kazakh is always very tough to beat at home. So I’m thinking maybe Duckworth is finally seeing his efforts pay off. As for Ugo, nothing out of the ordinary in his qualies. In short, I get why the Aussie is favored for two reasons: matchup and current form in this tournament.