First round done, but none the wiser?

There were some physical concerns for Fucsovics heading into his first round...

And like always, it's instead the opponent who somehow gets hampered ;) Luca Van Assche managed to somehow injure his lower back in the third game of the match, on what looked like a routine forehand. After a rather lengthy visit to the medical tent, he comes back. It's quite clear straight away that it's not looking good... not being able to move or hit properly (retiring later on). So, we got no real visual information from that match. However, Fucsovics was quite pessimistic about his shoulder injury in the post-match interview, saying it had not improved much, that he was planning to have some minor surgery, post-Wimbledon.

As for Tien, we were able to "L e a r n" a few things from his match ;) First of all, it was really scrappy. Both Tien and Svrcina struggled more on their own service games than players in a low-level ITF tournament on mud-slow clay, yikes. It looked rather comfortable from the scoreline, but it was more competitive than it seemed. Svrcina had several chances to get ahead in set four and pull it into a decider. Tien struggled in the matchup due to his lack of power against a fast counterpuncher who kept breaking his patterns, preventing him from controlling the match.

Well, Tien will have an easier time putting balls away now... Fucsovics is 34, twice as big as Svrcina, so he obviously won't move as well! At least he does have a great slice to help him out a bit. Tien tends to play quite well against Solid Baseliners like Marton, who are quite well-rounded but don't really excel at anything. As for Fucsovics, it's not the worst either... I prefer this kind of matchup for him rather than against someone who hits harder and can rush him! Also, the Hungarian does have a lot of experience on grass compared to Tien, so we have to give him an advantage in that area. Fucsovics needs to make sure he doesn't let Tien take control of this match, because that's when he's at his best, with his consistency and tennis IQ. Changing it up, slicing, coming to the net, serve and volley. It also helps that he got pretty much a free win against LVA in R1, since he tends to drop his level quite drastically between R1 and R2 in Slams. ...