Final before its time?

Even if the other semifinal is interesting, I think here we have the two players who have played the best in the tournament so far.

After his fine win against Cobolli, Burruchaga needed to back it up against his compatriot Carabelli. Despite a perfect start and genuine dominance, he dropped off a bit in intensity and simply lost the thread of the match, before putting in one last burst of acceleration right when he needed it. It wasn’t an easy match for him, and I think it’s impressive that he managed to pull through because he really wasn’t the favorite anymore in the final set. I’m very wary of him because he’s already shown this season, especially in Houston, that he can go very deep in this kind of tournament.

He now faces Merida, who’s been on a pretty crazy rise this season, but at the same time isn’t making too much noise. I feel like people rarely talk about him, and that short stint on grass won’t have been enough to break his good rhythm on clay. The Spaniard is in good form and has just won two matches fairly comfortably. He’s also playing at a great level this week and will be hard to beat.

The match-up is hard for me to pin down because I think they have quite similar qualities and similar profiles. I think it could go in all directions, and they recently faced each other in the Bundesliga, just a few days ago, with Burruchaga winning 14–12 in the super tie-break. That’s quite representative of what I expect, since they’re not big servers and they return well, which can lead to a lot of breaks. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword because instinctively you think it’s going to be a tight match, but there could also be quite a few scrappy sets, like a 7–5, 6–2 type of scoreline, which makes an over on games tricky. I’d say that in terms of structure and maximum potential, I give a slight edge to Merida, but it’s marginal.