Really tight match?

I’d be surprised to see many chances in the return leg for these two players.

This is quite a first-round match we’ve got here: Rublev has already made two finals at this tournament and Hurkacz has already won it once. We know that once they get going in their tournament, they’re capable of going very, very deep. Rublev has those two finals but he’s also had some early exits, he’s capable of losing to someone like Etcheverry last year for example, which is not exactly glorious on grass. His momentum is pretty good though, he’s had a good clay season and is coming in relatively confident. He can play very well on grass so yeah, we can label him as a big outsider if he manages to play his game without getting frustrated.

The frustration will already be there from this first round against Hurkacz, the Pole will probably bang down a bunch of aces and break up the rhythm with his service games. He leads Rublev 4–2 in the H2H, his profile is annoying for the Russian, who can get frustrated on return but also be pushed in baseline rallies since Hubi knows how to play well on the return. On grass it’s harder for him to really make the other guy play though, I don’t have much hope of seeing him get many chances on return games.

It’s a big match but it should be decided by small details; the margins are tight on grass and even more so with these kinds of players.