Enough to shut down Kecma?

You’d need at least that, yeah, because the title holder is in good form!

Yes, as I wrote in my last match summary, Kecma has just played a clean match from start to finish to beat Bellucci. That’s rare enough to be worth mentioning! He really likes the conditions here, and his results prove it. He’s playing with a sort of ease from the baseline and, above all, looks really strong mentally. So much so that he beat Paul and pushed Shelton to a tight three-setter last week, no less! So we’ll very likely have a Kecma who’ll force Tien to play an excellent match if he wants to win. Because the American was caught off guard by an excellent Cilic in Dallas last week. That was his only match since the Australian Open, and he might be a bit short on rhythm. And rhythm is exactly what he needs with his game. Their meeting in Shanghai in 2025 saw a very hot Tien coming off a final against Sinner, facing a Kecma who was chaining early exits. So the context is very different today. You might think the slow and windy conditions only favor the American, but the Serb has an ability to accelerate that Tien doesn’t have. In Shanghai, Tien had pounded the Serb’s forehand, his slightly weaker shot, and made him run side to side the whole match to wear Kecma down mentally and physically. I think there’s a much better chance things play out differently today, if only because the Serb is in a much better place mentally...