The Dangerous Qualifier

Hanfmann keeps getting through the qualification phase of every tournament...

What's his secret? Well, he's just playing really well for a long time now. We saw a really good Hanfmann already in Shanghai with several decent victories and a big fight against Djokovic. He qualified for Brussels, Paris, and now Athens. His serving has been top-level for a while now; his numbers are up there with some of the better servers currently on tour. He has also been returning quite well here in Athens, which has allowed him to get into opponent's serve games while keeping his own with elite numbers... 31 aces and just 1 DF in three matches. Hanfmann's weakness is actually his groundstrokes; they can be very hit or miss, especially the forehand. Does his opponent, Kopriva, have the profile to exploit this? I'm not so sure... he is a good returner, but he is quite underpowered at the ATP level (especially his serve), and while his strokes are solid, I've seen him struggle to play high-pace with a bigger hitter before. If you want to look at the positives, he is coming off a good performance (against a bad Opelka) as a Lucky Loser in the first round. I'm quite worried that it will be a bit similar to Dzumhur's win against Fearnley and then facing Korda... that the win looked better than it actually was, due to how poor the opponents were. With how good Hanfmann has been for a while now, along with his dominant scorelines in qualifying, it feels unlikely that there will be any value on his side - let's have a look!