Final day!

Paul ahead of his final against Korda: "Every time we have big battles because our games match up well!"

So, not necessarily all the time, but yeah, basically. And it makes sense when you think about it. If you haven’t seen the semis, Korda confirmed his excellent level, proving that he handled the humid conditions in Florida really well, a region where he grew up and played a lot. Surprising that this guy holds up physically in these conditions, right? In terms of level, we’ve got the Korda we know when he’s on: very solid on serve, and he absolutely cracks it from the baseline, like a big, talented baseliner. On Paul’s side, it’s a bit more complicated. It’s been a few matches now that he’s playing weirdly, with nerves for sure, but also with a slight lack of pure level, I think. Even though he easily beat a clearly tired Fritz, he had to go through several ordeals yesterday to get past Tien, who played a super aggressive card considering his current physical condition. He managed to break back kind of in extremis in the second set, varying his game a bit to break the rhythm of a Tien who was doing everything right. There’ll be some similarities in this match against Korda, I think, because Korda is going to bring the aggression, and he has every reason to, since I find Paul really bothered right now when he faces that kind of opponent. Now, it’s a final, and we know how much Korda can change mentally. But if we base ourselves on what we’ve seen so far, Korda looks just a slight notch above in pure tennis terms. I haven’t seen the odds yet, but I think he’ll logically come out as the favorite…