Can Tabilo take advantage of the opportunity?

He has kind of stumbled into the semifinal quite luckily, hasn't he?

I mean, his actions here this week have been a comeback win as a huge favorite against Midon. Besides that, he's been getting sun at the beach instead! He was not even close to his best in his match, and since Tirante pulled out of their quarterfinal match, he was not able to get some more time on court to try and improve that. Well, what if he turned up in the semifinal with absolutely nothing to lose, playing completely "free"? We know he has a high peak level with his attacking lefty game, Djokovic can vouch for that ;) Well, he will need to turn up because he is going against a Rublev who turned into a beast in his second round. Andrey was unplayable for almost the entire match against Baez, who was coming from a fantastic match himself. It is quite a good matchup for him, since he plays with the same intensity as Baez does, but his weapons are stronger, and he serves better. We know that Rublev can play very well here in Båstad; he is the 2023 champion.

Tabilo did beat Rublev this year, in Miami! He was serving really well then, not even conceding a single breakpoint in three sets. Actually, the odds in that match were just about what we have here, with Rublev's ML at around 1.42~! So, what is different now? I do think that Tabilo suffers more from playing on a slower surface, especially now that he has not really found his form. If he is unable to get as many free points off his serve, Rublev should be the sharper one in rallies, unless Tabilo really steps up. However, as I said, we know that Tabilo has a high peak level, and if he just swings freely and things click, Andrey could suffer and begin to implode, as he tends to do from time to time...