The champion takes the court!

Mpetshi is defending his title this week, and he comes in on the back of a strong tournament in Brussels—a good omen!

We’ve been reminded how annoying Mpetshi is to face indoors; it’s almost impossible to break him, and the rhythm is so choppy it throws you off your game. He loses to Lehecka, but you have to see how dialed-in the Czech was in that match—he gave nothing away on serve and wasn’t far from breaking Mpetshi multiple times. His match was so clean that I wonder if Fonseca can replicate it. The Brazilian was in Brussels too and crashed out in his opener against VDZ; the matchup was disastrous for him—he ran into a guy who can defend and counter him properly while serving great. Even so, Fonseca found himself ahead on the scoreboard twice but couldn’t hold the line. Now he gets a completely different matchup, but honestly I don’t really see how he can break Mpetshi. Basically the Brazilian isn’t a great returner; he doesn’t have a good record against big servers. I also think he needs rhythm to feel comfortable in the match—he still goes for a lot and plays too fast, which can hurt him. That said, Mpetshi doesn’t really have the weapons to break him either; I’m not going to sell the Frenchman as something he’s not—he’s just going to hold over and over, and if Fonseca can’t find his range then yes he’s in danger, but logically we’re headed for more tiebreaks.