Walton, that rascal

The Australian alternates between good and not so good, hard to follow...

Superb performance from the Australian against the Frenchman Quentin Halys; we can expect him to be much better than what he’s shown on average at the start of the season. He’s a player who doesn’t look like much, but he has good serving quality and knows how to hang in there from the baseline. I remember a match against Lehecka, for example, where he was really just a hair’s breadth away from beating him, or several matches like that where nobody expects much from him, but he turns into a really annoying player to face. I feel that’s even more true when he has nothing much to lose, and his first round is very reassuring. So, watch out for Walton. On the American side, Learner Tien took a week off instead of playing Acapulco, which isn’t a bad choice given the geopolitical context of the tournament and the bouts of food poisoning that happen there every year. And on top of that, at the previous tournament in Delray Beach, he looked quite tired. From his first match against Kecmanovic, he just about got through, then got through again against Tiafoe, and then played a three-setter where he was also very close to getting through against Tommy Paul. So he had some tough matches, but the break allowed him to recover physically. In terms of tennis level, there’s no problem at all for me. And I think his player profile matches up very well against Walton. Even though Walton’s profile can also be a good one in the sense that he’ll have to shorten the rallies as much as possible so he doesn’t get dragged into long baseline exchanges. So, for me, there’s not much suspense, maybe a match a bit tighter than what the odds suggest, but still a win for the American. I don’t think there’ll unfortunately be much value to find in the odds, but let’s go take a look anyway.