CRAMAX

The guys got wrecked in their respective last matches—what will it be tomorrow?

Two quite different kinds of fatigue that aren’t equally pronounced. Michelsen was coming back from Almaty, which is no small trip, and then ran into Cerundolo in Vienna right after; I can understand why he threw in the towel quickly! For Bergs it was a more general fatigue from the Shanghai/European indoor stretch—he felt almost obliged to come play Brussels, and he said that if it had been another tournament he wouldn’t have done it. He stuck to his word since he pulled out of Basel a few days later even though it’s a 500, and he lost in R1 in Brussels, so it’s a level of fatigue that worries me. It’s very pronounced with him in general; his game is physical and as soon as he’s low on juice it gets too complicated. As for Michelsen, I’m less worried as I said—I thought he looked good in Almaty and overall he’s a good indoor player; he keeps the ball low and plays aggressively. The courts aren’t slow but they don’t take much bounce, and I don’t think those are optimal conditions for Zizou’s game. The Belgian trails 2–0 in the H2H, both in the U.S. on outdoor hard with the home edge to Michelsen; indoors Bergs is very good and that reshuffles the deck a bit. Let’s check the odds!