Multiple revenge

De Minaur has to avenge his defeat at Queen’s this season, but if we look a bit further back, Nakashima lost when they faced each other right here last year. Both will be determined to come out on top.

I’ll start with De Minaur, who I think just played a complete match for the first time in quite a while. Sure, it was only against the young Hewitt, but the Australian had already shown an uptick in level, especially in the third set against Tsitsipas. He’s just confirmed that he feels good in Washington with another win and, above all, a much better overall impression – he’s up and running in his tournament and ready to defend his title. I have to admit his attitude is much better than in the recent tournaments. What he’s showing this week looks solid. And physically, he hasn’t had to dig too deep so far. That’s an important factor given the conditions we have this week, which are quite demanding in that respect. To sum up, all of this gives us a good De Minaur who should be very strong tomorrow.

Logically, we should also see a good Nakashima tomorrow given his excellent start to the tournament and his generally stable level. He’s just beaten Mensik in a match where he was very efficient, even though his opponent was playing well. I’m not sure he really deserved the win as such, because I think Mensik was a bit better, but he ended up cracking at the worst possible moment with disastrous shot choices. In terms of play, it wasn’t a great Nakashima; he mainly relied on his serve to protect himself. Tomorrow, he’ll have a different kind of match to play, which should be much less serve-oriented. He’ll have to work longer from the baseline against De Minaur, who is mobile and a good defender.

It’s indeed Nakashima who leads in the head-to-head against Alex de Minaur. Notably, he got a win at Queen’s this year, where he was also very clinical. I’m a bit torn about the match-up, because for me, a good De Minaur is really troublesome for Nakashima. He’ll make him play enough, wear him down, and he can really beat him physically, for example. The problem is that De Minaur isn’t as consistent as in past years, and he can alternate a great match with a very poor one. It’s hard to trust him, even if this week it looks like we have good reasons to expect his best version. Do we trust the Australian, or is he going to let us down?