Low Expectations

Here we are in a quarterfinal, with both players being quite far from their best...

Yes, they have both been quite fortunate with their draws this week; I stand by that. Tirante has been playing quite passively; his two weapons, the serve and the forehand, have not been very impactful. I will take into account that it has also been a tactical choice to simply remain solid from the baseline against two extremely erratic opponents in Ofner and Basilashvili. It will be interesting to see if he goes with a similar tactic this time, as he will be facing another attacking player who is not in the best of form. Tabilo was a break down in the deciding set to youngster Midon. We know that Tabilo is such a streaky player; that he has moments in the season where he just disappears and loses without making much of a sound. I will list the positives I found in his match... I do like his attitude; he is trying to pump himself up, and perhaps he can find his game a bit more now, after a challenging first round.

It really is not easy to trust either player to deliver a good performance currently, but I do think the matchup favours Tabilo. I trust him more on serve than Tirante currently, and his forehand into Tirante's weak backhand feels more effective than Tirante's forehand into Tabilo's strong backhand...