Sleep-inducing match incoming.

With 15 aces and 30 aces respectively in their first round, these two players are set to serve bombs and play tie-breaks as usual.

A fairly comfortable win for Hurkacz, even though the Pole usually loves getting himself into marathon matches at Grand Slams. On paper, it’s a nice win against Ruud, who’s very highly ranked, but the Norwegian hates grass, doesn’t train on it, and was almost happy to lose in the first round. He played his match, Hurkacz played very well, but once again the Pole kind of crumbled a bit when it came time to close. He could have lost the third set and walked right into a little trap.

The level is good, his profile is lethal on grass and even more so in the early rounds when the grass is still very lively. He’s already reached the semifinals here. Hurkacz can keep building confidence and become a real dark horse this week. The second round is still very much on his racquet, but it’s a match with a different feel from what he just had. He’ll have to be careful to manage his nerves properly and not waste a potential lead.

It’s not Mejdedovic waiting for him, but Ofner, the Austrian, who’s pulled off the trick again as a giant-killer and has just knocked out the Serb in a very tight match with low overall quality. Mejdedovic was sick, had a fever and wasn’t feeling well on court, but that doesn’t explain everything. Ofner finished the match with 30 aces. Even if he hadn’t played on grass before this first round, we know his ability to play well everywhere. His game is very simple, very efficient, and he’s already put together some nice runs at Grand Slams. He’s a player you have to be wary of.

As a big underdog in this match and with a “servebot” profile who could manage to push it to tie-breaks and tight ends of sets, I don’t think this is an easy match for Hurkacz.

The Pole is still a strong favorite, because apart from the serve he has a better overall game quality than Ofner, but there’s no way I’d back him at a very low price, that’s for sure.