Another surprise guest

Quite a few surprise players in this third round, it's nice to see new faces even if we should be seeing Kjaer often in the future

Although Kjaer is a young talent with a promising future, it's a bit of a surprise to see him in the third round of this tournament because he’s not really having a great year and I’ve seen a few average matches from him. He came through qualifying without beating any big names and first took advantage of an injured Opelka, then of a Shapo who was completely off his game. On his side there’s not much to criticize, but it’s not exactly dazzling either; he’s not getting big wins like Prizmic for example, he’s missing that big performance to really validate everything. And now he jumps straight to the next level against Medvedev on top of that.

Daniil had to redeem himself after a performance unworthy of any player in Monte Carlo, and you can say he did it! A win in 3 sets against Marozsan, but only because he relaxed a bit at the end of the match, otherwise the level was great. He says Madrid isn’t his favorite tournament and indeed this high bounce and the speed of the courts aren’t where he expresses himself best. I’m staying cautious because from the moment he snaps mentally there’ll be no coming back. However, he benefits from a very manageable third round, especially from a match-up point of view: he has the ideal profile to counter Kjaer and throw him off his game, which is why I remain confident, at least for this next round.