Less pressure in a bigger tournament.

Borges completely cracked under the pressure at home during the Estoril tournament. Playing away from home will do him a world of good.

I thought Borges was injured or a bit sick given his extremely bizarre attitude during his loss in Estoril. In the end, that wasn’t the case at all; it was just huge stress that completely threw off his game and made him mentally tense. He was only a shadow of himself on court and you couldn’t recognize him. Especially since before that match, he’d been playing pretty well for weeks. I’d even say we had an excellent Borges, and without the pressure of this tournament, he could have done something nice at home. It’s really the only negative takeaway from the last few weeks, because his level is really high and he’s back at a tournament where he already reached the third round in 2024. I think the conditions are pretty favorable for him, and once again it’s quite fast compared to other years, in my opinion. The bounce isn’t very high, which suits his game perfectly.

He’s facing Kovacevic again, who’s struggling at the moment, having dropped quite a few points last week with his first-round loss in Los Cabos. He was defending a final there, yet he never managed to get into his match. The American is on a streak of 6 first-round losses in his last 6 tournaments; he’s only won one match recently, and that was in qualifying at Queen’s. If we look back further, his last good tournament was in Hamburg, where he benefited from his lucky loser status. But without that, it would have been yet another pretty disappointing tournament. It’s a tough period for him, but he should find a bit more level and motivation with the hard-court swing in the US.

Let’s talk a bit about the match-up between these two players, who have only faced each other once. I think a good Kovacevic can cause problems for Borges because his game is very simple and quite lethal. He can lean on his serve quality and forehand while playing aggressive tennis. That can trouble Borges, who prefers having time, but the Portuguese is playing really well right now and I trust him far more in terms of maximum potential level. You’d have to be able to sense if we’re getting top-level Kovacevic, and in that case I’d understand a bet on his side, but right now it’s mostly speculation. Everything points towards Borges.