If you like short shorts and nicely bent legs, this is your game

It’s gonna fold some legs in here!

Very good tournament for Duckworth in Brisbane: two clean wins in qualifying, then a big battle against Michelsen, the eventual semifinalist. A performance that confirms an excellent end to the season, kicked off by a nice semifinal in Almaty and carried over on the Challenger tour, allowing him to quietly re-enter the Top 100. He’s an ultra-tenacious player, with his limits of course, but who has recently shown that you really have to play very well to beat him. Clearly a player to keep an eye on during this Australian swing.

On the other side, Machac played a very strong match for two sets against Lehecka in Brisbane before fading physically and dropping the third against an excellent Czech. He’s a player I really like when he’s at 100%, but his fitness is becoming a genuinely worrying recurring issue. He gives the impression that he hasn’t been able to perform at full capacity for a while, with his entire second half of the season disrupted by physical niggles.

The head-to-head is 2–0 for Duckworth (2021 and 2022), but that needs to be put into perspective: Machac was not at all the player back then that he has become today.