Qualifier showdown

A golden chance for two out-of-form players to get back on track—who will seize it?

We’ve got two players in fairly similar dynamics facing off today; both badly needed wins and each just got two in qualifying, so they’ve got a nice opportunity today.

Kovacevic is back in conditions he likes—we especially remember his great tournament in Montpellier—whereas Arnaldi has very little indoor experience and has been disappointing so far.

I envision a matchup that favors Arnaldi, who will find himself counterpunching against Kovacevic’s assaults. The H2H points in that direction too, with Arnaldi up 2–0, though those were on outdoor hard.

In terms of level of play, I’m missing a bit of information since I only saw a few snippets of Arnaldi’s match against De Jong on Saturday, where I found him pretty average. I did see both of them last week, though, and based on those matches I’d give the edge to the Italian, because I found Kovacevic very flat—though that seems less the case here with these two wins.