Revenge to be taken for Gaubas!

The young Lithuanian is coming out of the qualifiers and wants to impose himself against a Baez who’s been fairly average for several weeks/months.

No breaks conceded by Gaubas during his two qualifying matches, which is quite rare and worth pointing out, given that he’s not even a big server. The young Lithuanian continues to progress and will have good things to offer in this match, notably solid baseline play combined with a bit more power than usual thanks to the conditions. I saw him against Sakamoto in the final round of qualifying and it was really very solid.

I remember their match in Bucharest very well, a few weeks ago, where Baez won by a very harsh score of 6–3, 6–1, even though both had the same number of break points, but the Argentine was simply more clinical. His experience made the difference, as did the fact that the conditions in Bucharest suited him better than those in Madrid. Bucharest is a tournament he particularly enjoys, whereas Madrid, not so much. In general, he gets through one round against a weaker player, before logically losing to a stronger one.

Just like Gaubas, Baez is making good use of the conditions in Madrid to gain power while maintaining strong baseline solidity. But it’s a bit of a mirror match-up, in my opinion, and it’s not that obvious to see a Baez win at 1.42. I think Gaubas, with a bit more confidence thanks to his two qualifying wins, and the fact that Baez hasn’t been brilliant for several weeks now, could make this a much tighter and more hard-fought match.