Jiri enters the stage
He wrapped up the clay-court season for us with a pretty disappointing match, where is he at now?
That's how Jiri is. Sometimes he plays absolute crap against a guy who defends well and who, on paper, isn’t really dangerous. Then he locks back in. It’s rarely a question of level. It’s a combination of conditions: clay, a player who defends well and is surprisingly fiery, him getting bogged down…
On grass, like everyone else, he’ll have to adapt. But he’s got a game and natural qualities that should help him make the transition. On paper, Duckworth looks like the perfect opponent for his first round: good enough to be a proper test, weak enough for Jiri to get through if he’s serious. That’s how Duck is. He’s going to give everything until the end of his career. He stole a set from Jodar at Roland. He gets a lousy Dedura on grass in R1. And here he is with nothing to lose.
No official meeting between the two, but Jiri, for me, has the returning quality that can blunt Duck’s no. 1 weapon. It might take him a bit of time to get going, and Jiri could fall behind early, but logically, I don’t see a big upset here.
