Stockholm Syndrome

Will Popyrin have any lingering feelings from their meeting in Sweden?

Well, let's start with the most important fact: Korda was greatly physically hampered due to a leg injury recently in his loss to Sonego on 27 October in Paris. Right away, that's a big red flag that is going to make it hard to trust him with a pre-match bet here as a sizable favorite. He has moments where he performs well in the lesser ATP 250 events, where there is not so much pressure, so there is that. Fortunately for him, he'll get to face Popyrin once again, who has been struggling since coming back from injury. Three matches played and three losses. At least he has faced Korda, Berrettini, and Bublik, so it's not that awful! Despite being a bit rusty, he is still serving and returning decently; the main issue has been the rallying and his groundstrokes. Popyrin is normally much better in slower conditions with a higher bounce (he struggles on grass and indoor hardcourts), but perhaps it could be a decent thing for now, since it could shorten the rallies that he had to endure in Stockholm, Vienna, and Paris? If you can hold your own serve well against Korda, you have quite a big chance... since he is not a stranger to gifting away a nervous game himself or collapsing in the tiebreaks. We saw how Popyrin was unable to handle their match physically in Stockholm as it went on, but at least now he has played a few more matches since then, so this could be less of a concern this time...