Not the same purpose

Medjedovic was forced to retire last year in the first round of Wimbledon against Ofner.

This time there’s no apparent injury before starting this match for Medjedovic, the Serb has managed his schedule well and has just had a “good” tournament at Queen’s. I put that in quotation marks because he still lost to Humbert in a match he should have won without the slightest doubt. But Medjedovic tightens up at the end of sets and in tie-breaks, and he handles pressure very badly, he’s what you’d call a choker. So watch out in the hot moments of this first round, and given the matchup profile, that’s likely to happen…

Ofner loves playing on clay but he’s a player who relies on a big-quality serve and powerful baseline game; he could be a good grass-court player if he played more matches on it. He actually comes into this with no matches on the surface this season; he preferred to keep playing on clay and it looks like that was a good idea, as he just made the final in Parma. We know what his maximum potential level is; do I need to remind you that last season he beat Paul right here, for example. He’s a very dangerous player who’s confident; he’ll have to manage the surface transition but in such a long format he has time.

A high-level first-round match with two excellent servers and big baseline hitters, the edge still goes to Medjedovic in my opinion; he seems so much more complete and strong at his best level that he should be able to find solutions. Ofner’s lack of matches on the surface bothers me a bit, but Medjedovic is terrible in long formats, he doesn’t know how to handle them and could very well let the Austrian back into the match at some point…