A chance to get revenge

Jodar had been defeated by a very wide margin in their first meeting at Indian Wells this year.

It’s always hard to judge those matches in hindsight, because it was such a particular match for Jodar who, concretely, never lost in the first round again for the rest of the season. His only first-round exit is against Tabilo. Was it just a bad match? Can the Chilean’s game really cause him problems? How should we evaluate this matchup? Indian Wells is quite slow, kind of the opposite of Washington. And Jodar hadn’t yet reached such a high level of play. It’s in the following tournaments that he really raised his level and pulled ahead. That’s also why it’s really hard to draw any conclusions.

In any case, this week he’s really excellent and I’m still just as impressed by his maturity and his ability to maintain an extremely high level of play, no matter the circumstances. He beat Fils, Nishikori, and Musetti, who have totally different playing styles, each time finding solutions to the challenges he was facing. Yesterday, for example, he was down 6–1 very quickly against an excellent defender who was extending the rallies. However, Jodar didn’t lose his cool at all, he took back control of the match and ended up beating Musetti quite comfortably, I’d even say. The Spaniard is impressive and will again be priced very low, as usual.

Tabilo will again be priced very high, as he has been all week. He’s been the underdog three times and in all three matches he put in full performances, taking out good players. His list of scalps is pretty impressive for this kind of small tournament; he hasn’t had an easy match. Yesterday, he put in another great performance. He says that during the clay season, he was already missing hard courts. You can see the motivation is back, and so is the level of play. He knows how to play on hard courts, play fast, hold up under pressure, his backhand is flat, he can capitalize on his serve. In short, it’s a ‘big-week’ Tabilo, and we know he’s capable of winning tournaments. The real question is whether he can keep going, because he said he was a bit tired yesterday in the third set. He’s not exactly a physical beast. That worries me a bit.

In terms of his game, I really like his lefty touch and his backhand taken close to the net. He’s a player who’s not bad on return, contrary to what you might think. Even if we can’t really lean on his win over Jodar at the start of the year, I still think it suggests he potentially has a game that could bother the Spaniard. At least, that’s what I think.