Decisive tiebreak?

Lack of confidence on both sides, can we expect to see turnarounds and a tense finish?

Mannarino just lost a big battle against Berrettini and in Phoenix he ran out of steam against Harris after 3h21 of play, which is physically reassuring for the Frenchman, who keeps showing good form despite his age, but who isn’t winning much at the moment even though I think he’s honestly playing well! He’s missing that little something to turn matches in his favor, but the overall impression is good and Miami seems like a good tournament for him, his track record there is pretty decent.

He’s up against the Chinese player Zhang again, who also hasn’t been winning much this year; apart from his Challenger title he’s only got 2 wins in 2026. He’s playing decent matches too, but it’s just not clicking. Logical losses to Mensik and FAA, then a scrappy defeat to Wong in a Challenger. Slow conditions and intense heat don’t help him, but still. His backhand is dreadful and outside of his serve his game is still pretty weak. Given the speed of the courts in Miami he’s supposed to be hard to break, but I find Mannarino pretty solid on return in his recent matches while still being super annoying on serve with his lefty slice. Either it’s a really tight match with only tiebreaks, or it goes totally off the rails.

For me Manna has the perfect game to mess with Zhang, he’s going to give him low, skidding balls and unusual targets at his own peculiar rhythm, he can completely make the Chinese player lose it and throw him off. Anyway, I have the Frenchman as the favorite in this match, it probably won’t be pretty and I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes to a third set, but I’m team Manna!