A Tricky Encounter Awaits?

Both players cleared their first round with relative ease...

Well, Botic made it a lot harder than it needed to be. He struggled to really find his game in the first set, and at the end of the last set, he missed some match points on return and gifted a break while serving for the match - not exactly the thing that inspires confidence (although he did break back to win the match). Daniel was a rather good matchup for him, a player who doesn't possess overwhelming power or unlimited endurance with topspin grinding. Now, that will change... Vallejo is quite a typical South American clay-courter, who plays with a lot of intensity, and it's quite hard to penetrate his defenses, especially in these kinds of conditions. It's been a good year so far for the Paraguayan. Currently, I find that he is really putting everything into his matches, a lot of emotions and intensity, most likely he is quite eager to get back on track after the unfortunate "incident" at Roland Garros.

Now, the matchup is a bit tricky, as I mentioned. VDZ is quite good against this kind of Solid Baseliner, since he can hang in rallies, he defends really well when he is not getting rushed and overpowered... but it changes a bit when it's on slower clay and when he is facing a real grinder rather than a well-balanced player without any huge power. I can recall quite many of his matches against this kind of grinding player; they tend to be very competitive, with Botic losing by small margins. Truthfully, the Dutchman is a danger for the grinders as well, since he can play with a really scary controlled aggression, where he is much less erratic than your usual ball-basher...