The Interview
Well, it seems like Fokina exaggerated a bit...
Once again, it happens. Fokina sounded like he was in a lot of pain and very tired after his first-round match against Juanma Cerundolo. The market reacts to it, and instead, it was his opponent Marozsan who was physically hampered by a left-knee injury while Fokina was skipping around like an energizer bunny! Now, how will Fokina feel here? He has played quite many matches during the grass swing, but most of them have been straight-setters. Having two straight-set wins now in Wimbledon as well should help. Fucsovics has also been quite fortunate in his first two matches... first against Van Assche, who was hampered in the third game and retired later on, and then against Tien, who also got sick and could barely move at the end in the fourth set. Ironically enough, Fucsovics went into Wimbledon with surgery planned after the tournament... but he is still here in the third round!
On paper, this looks like a pretty rough matchup for Fucsovics. While he is a solid player in most regards, he doesn't really excel at anything, and his movement/endurance tends to be an issue against the top players. So, he is forced into playing a rather offensive game, which tends to work against "worse" players, but he usually lacks the firepower against the better ones. Grass does help him, since it tends to be faster and not as physically taxing! And yes, his slice is great. He tends to really drop off in his second round after a long first round at Grand Slams..., but now he hasn't really played two "full" matches. I wasn't particularly impressed by him against Tien, who was possibly ill from the start of the match; it was all quite low quality. Will Fucsovics be able to push through offensively enough against such a good mover and also returner like Fokina? I find it quite unlikely, but perhaps he can take advantage of a few Fokina dips?
