Is Landaluce pulling a Vacherot on us?

The young Spaniard who came through qualifying is in the middle of making a phenomenal breakthrough, and it’s “only” Lehecka in the quarters.

What can we say about the Spaniard’s week? All his matches are awesome, he’s finally making everything click when his game had been stuck for months. You can see a guy overflowing with confidence this week, he feels the ball so well that he’s trying very tough shots but without doing anything stupid. He’s in the zone, as they say; his match against Korda is the ultimate proof of that. He played a completely off first set but recovered well afterward up to the tiebreak, where he went and grabbed it, notably saving a match point with a winning backhand return – serious balls on this guy. After that he took over and logically won, which shows just how strong he still was. I don’t really know who we can compare him to, but he’s raised his level from the baseline and is hitting like never before. There are quite a few Spaniards in the stands as well, which has Landaluce fired up like never before, even though he’s usually pretty reserved on court – right now he’s having a blast and enjoying it to the fullest. The question we need to ask is: how long can this last?

We can be a bit more certain on the Lehecka side, because we know the Czech, and seeing him at this level is anything but surprising when he’s having a good week. From R1 he showed positive signs, and his win over Fritz confirms that once again, in a hard-court tournament where the bounce is low and the court speed is fast, we have to consider him a top player. He’s just played two perfect matches in terms of aggression and attitude; this version of the Czech is deadly. What reassures me for him before he faces the Landaluce trap is that he’s already gotten himself out of several traps before, against similar profiles. Kouame (nothing to do in terms of level of play) was a hot one in an electric atmosphere, plus the Czech’s lack of confidence, but he played like a boss, and then he easily beat Quinn, the American on fire with his aggressive game, before going after Fritz. His week has been impressive; before facing yet another player with a big serve/aggressive profile (even more so than usual), I feel he’s calm and in control. What about you?