Still doubts

Another match where one of the two players comes in injured, or at least with doubts about his fitness

The early rounds at M1000s are tricky in cases like this—you’ve got players who might be injured but still show up without really knowing how serious it is. Ruud pulled out of Basel against Fokina because of an ankle issue—simple precaution or a real injury? I’m leaning toward the first option; let’s not forget he was coming off a title in Stockholm, too, which is a kind of back-to-back he hasn’t been too used to lately. We can take FAA as an example—he also won a title and then got “injured” in Basel, but today he was fine and won his match. Every case is different, of course. That’s the only concern with Ruud, because otherwise his tennis is back—he played really well in Stockholm and didn’t look bad in Basel either. He’s adapting better than before to indoor, and here we’ve got a perfect mix for his game: the courts are slow, which lets him run around his backhand and take control of the rallies. It’s close to what we had in Stockholm, and that was ideal for him. So I’m expecting a good Ruud, maybe a bit hampered by the ankle (but there’s no way to be sure). That’s it for the Norwegian—now we need to talk about Altmaier, who just beat a poor Giron. Not taking anything away from the German—he did his job—but the opposition was really weak. On his end, he was solid, especially with great forward play, winning 12/15 points at the net—a real way to hurt Ruud. Almaier is talented, often inconsistent, but capable of suddenly raising his level out of nowhere; I remember at the start of the year indoors he surprised everyone, and he’s cheeky enough to do it again. In terms of gameplay, he needs to be proactive and not let Ruud dictate and push him back, otherwise it’s over. The odds will decide, but I’m really tempted to take a shot on the German.