He's not going to pull that stunt on us again, is he?

Baez surprised everyone at the start of the hard-court season by beating genuinely good players on this surface.

It's pretty funny to see a few clay-courters becoming good on hard, we had the Munar case last season and we saw the same thing with Baez at the start of the year. A more aggressive game and no fear of coming to the net, it's good to try to constantly improve rather than staying a clay-courter for life, but just like Munar, Baez seems to have lost some of his shine on clay. His Golden Swing is a total failure despite two semifinals. Nothing positive to take from it in my opinion, it was 5x better last season, he made more unforced errors and seemed to get a bit lost tactically. For his return to hard against Tseng he played much better and got a clear, convincing win, even if the opponent wasn't great, but still. I tell myself he could pull it off again and produce some good matches on hard now that he's playing without pressure, nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Lehecka is normally too strong for him on a fast surface BUT Baez has already beaten him on hard, it was in Winston Salem the year he took the title. With his recent good results on hard and the slowness of this surface, I see him as a potential danger for Lehecka, who is sluggish at the moment. A three-set win over Nardi in Dubai, then an average two-set win against Carreno where he should have lost the first set; we expect better from him on a fast hard court like Dubai. Here we move to much slower conditions, often with a bit of wind, and his track record here reflects that: inconsistent. A quarterfinal in 2024 and two second-round losses, you never know with him. Given his recent matches and the potential danger Baez represents, I’d tend to say the value will be on the Argentine’s side...