Mr Djere is expected!

The Serb has a lot on the line in this Golden Swing and I don’t see how he’s going to get through it...

Semi-finalist here, finalist in Santiago, Djere had an incredible Golden Swing in 2025! This season it’s looking tricky for several reasons: first, he’s injured or at least not at full capacity. He said it again after his loss at the Australian Open that his leg is stopping him from being at 100%, he can’t serve like before and has issues with his forward/backward movement. Obviously he can’t train as much as planned and that’s also why he cramped quickly against Stan. The second problem is that he’s not coming through qualifying this time, he’ll be straight into the main draw and won’t be able to play himself in, and he also got a bad draw in the form of Burruchaga, a player I like.

The Argentinian just made the final in Rosario and remains an interesting player on clay; he’s well-rounded. He only loses to a superb Carabelli in the final and arrives with confidence and better preparation than Djere for this tournament, and he’s also playing at home so he’ll naturally have more support. One of his strengths is the drop shot; he’s very skilled in that area and if Djere is indeed hampered when moving forward, that could become a big factor. Outside of the drop shot, the match-up is relatively tight: we’ve got two good baseliners, Djere is more powerful but also more erratic.