Who will grab the opportunity?

This tournament has become wide open, hasn't it?

Well, we started with no "Sincaraz", and now a lot of the top seeds have been eliminated as well. Now, I'm not sure Paul or Tien is a contender for a title based on their current form; they haven't really shown us anything great yet! Paul played a disastrous match against Majchrzak in Washington, but at least he managed to scrape by Royer in his first match here, in straight-sets as well, clutch. Tien has not exactly been setting the world on fire either... getting completely dominated by Mannarino in Washington before a three-set win against Monfils in slow conditions (also taking a 0-6 in the second set). If we want to give him a bit of credit, he was facing one of his idols, so there was a bit of nerves! With both players lacking form and perhaps a bit of confidence, along with this being the last match played in slower conditions, it wouldn't be a surprise if this turns out to be quite scrappy. Paul still might need a bit more time to play himself into form (since he got married), and the same goes for Tien, ever since that match against Fucsovics at Wimbledon. If Tommy was a bit more in form, I would trust him to have the upper hand, taking early initiative and not ceding control to Tien, where he can really work and construct the points. However, right now, Paul is quite erratic (and not clicking on return), which makes it a lot harder to take that approach!