Daniil and Daniel

Daniil Medvedev clearly has the advantage, but Altmaier has been surprising this week.

So far it’s been a very serious tournament from Medvedev. He’s just taken out Atmane in a high‑level match, with an inspired and combative Frenchman on the other side. I really like what Medvedev is producing at the start of this tournament. And as he likes to remind everyone, last week he only lost to Majchrzak, who then went on to win the tournament. It’s true that his game works well on grass and he seems to be finding some kind of consistency again. Even if, with him, anything is possible. All it takes is for him to get up on the wrong side of the bed tomorrow and start doing anything on his second serves and having a go at his box. The bad Daniil is never far away, but the trend is clearly towards a good Medvedev this week.

It’s really high‑quality Altmaier this week, with a breath of fresh air on grass that we didn’t really associate with him. Already last week in Stuttgart, he took a set off Tiafoe and has just backed it up by winning two rounds and knocking out Hurkacz, which is still quite a nice surprise. The motivation is there, he likes playing at home, he likes big challenges. People often say he’s a Grand Slam player, but he’s also a big‑tournament player and he’s proving it once again. Having Dustin Brown in his camp obviously has to help him understand the surface better and perform better on it. Honestly, I think he’s excellent at the moment. On the other hand, he’s going to have a match‑up question tomorrow. I don’t really think it’s the best match‑up for him. He likes to use his opponents from the baseline before mixing in attacks, but here he’s going to have to do a bit more in every area. They already played here last year and he lost quite comfortably. This year, he seems to understand the surface better. Maybe he could put up more resistance, but for me it’s still going to be a bit too short.