Indecisive

Not easy to pick a winner here: 3–3 in head-to-heads as well... +3.5 sets?

And as if that weren’t enough, I think we can’t really take much from their last meeting two months ago at the Masters. Loré was already arriving pretty tired from Athens after his final against Djokovic, and he found out very late that he’d be taking part. Still, that match did confirm one thing for us: their match-up depends a lot on the surface conditions and the speed. Fritz explains it very well: when it’s too slow, he has to pick the right moments to attack and if he gets it wrong, he puts himself in danger. He talks a lot about the Italian’s slice, and his ability to neutralize his opponents’ power/aggression. The two players will face off in the Rod Laver Arena. It’s the stadium with the slowest conditions, but they’ll be playing at 4 p.m. local time, in 30 degrees, and that really matters! Especially since we once again saw that good aggression bothered the Italian in his match against Machac, “especially on the backhand side,” Loré admits. So not an ideal match-up for Loré but… he’s still the one who beat a good Machac! There are many other factors of course. And in this heat, we immediately think about the physical dimension. We’ve already seen Loré cramp in a match, but this time he held up really well over 5 sets in 38 degrees. As for Fritz, he hasn’t spent too much energy, but… I’ve often seen him touching his ribs or abs. Still, no major red flag physically for either of them for me. Well, except that if Taylor Fritz has to drop his intensity at some point and becomes less effective in his aggressive profile, Loré could gain the upper hand in terms of the match-up.

You know it, I love Musetti. His game has its limits on hard court. And even though he’s improved a lot on this surface, at the end of last season he lost to Michelsen, Bonzi, Tabilo, Auger, Mpetshi, Zverev, Sonego, Alcaraz… You see the profiles? ;) I always feel like betting on him, but it’s clear that he needs time to find his rhythm and figure things out against that kind of match-up.