Don't Drop Focus

Let's see if Fokina can have more success than Budkov Kjaer...

Well, I like his chances a lot better ;) Opelka's game tends to be very overwhelming for the younger players, who are more likely to throw in their own loose service game and be overwhelmed by Opelka's constant "going-for-broke" playstyle. Besides that, Fokina is a pretty good returner who is good at taking the ball early. Despite Opelka's power, he can also extend rallies more than many other players, due to his speed. Something else should help Fokina is his increased consistency; he has become a lot more reliable to deliver balanced performances (unless he is in a final). Still, it's going to be played on fairly fast courts, and Opelka looked quite good in his opening match. He managed to hit a lot of good drop shots, which are devastating when the opponent is so far from the baseline... let's see if Fokina's speed will help him. Something we saw with Opelka is that he can make inroads on return against the more inexperienced players (and look very dominant), but as soon as he faces a higher-level ATP player, it looks a lot different - usually with Opelka being invisible in return games. Nonetheless, Opelka tends to be quite good at covering his handicap when he is a big underdog (which I'm guessing he will be here), since even elite opposition will struggle to break him enough...