The balls are going to be hurting

Two extremely powerful players, it’s not clay-court tennis we’re going to see tomorrow, but I’d say it’s just as good, right?

I’ll start with Medjedovic, who’s having a really great week coming from the qualifiers. He had a few slow starts, but once he’s into his match, you have to be really strong to knock him out. Between his serve quality, his power from the baseline, and his touch, he’s a really complete player who offers an efficient kind of clay-court tennis in his own style. No physical/mental drop yet in his matches, but I know him well and I know it’s never far away. He saved a set point against Borges today by going for a winner on a second serve, and I can tell you that if he’d double-faulted, the match would’ve been totally different after that. That’s his style, he’s sometimes walking a tightrope but he’s also so capable of reaching a very high level. Physically he still seems pretty fresh to me, which is an important factor for him, but I still think that in a long, intense match tomorrow, he won’t be the one finishing the strongest.

On Rublev’s side, he’s having a real boss-like week, the kind we’d like to see from him more often! He hasn’t dropped a set and it’s not like he had a gift of a draw either. His match today against Machac is representative of his level this week: monstrous. Even aside from the level of play, I find his attitude good; he’s more relaxed than usual and naturally that means his level stays higher throughout the whole match. I’m a bit worried it might be a tight, closed match with service games that are a bit too well controlled. It’ll be their first meeting and we might get a match that takes a while to really get going. I’d say Rublev gives me a bit more assurance; he’s deadly at the end of tournaments, and we know that when he gets to this stage, it usually means he’s playing at his top‑10 level or not far from it. Medjedovic is playing a bit better than usual, he can still put in a solid match tomorrow, but he’ll need to be careful with managing his emotions and his physical condition in a match that could last a while.