Does the Dutchman have any chance?

Michelsen is on quite a "heater"...

Alex has played a lot of tennis lately, since returning to the US after his first-round loss at Wimbledon. Yeah, we are talking about 15 matches in just over a month. Granted, many of those matches haven't been too exhausting, since he won with quite dominant scorelines in the Newport and Bloomfield Hills CH. Despite not having a huge result in the two following ATP tournaments, we can feel he is playing at a good level. I would like to point out that the matchup against Mannarino and Fritz in Washington was quite good for Michelsen; the same goes for Struff in the first round of Montreal. A straight-set win against Cerundolo was perhaps a bit misleading, before getting hammered by Merida, who was simply on fire in Montreal. Now, it will be interesting, since he'll have about a week of rest, which was probably a great thing for him! I don't think he wants to slow down now, especially since the conditions here in Cincinnati should be quite good for him. Michelsen is above average when it comes to both serving and returning, so a fast surface like Cincinnati suits him, with a limited number of longer rallies.

After a huge Roland Garros (as a lucky loser), De Jong has struggled to string together wins on the main tour. It would be fair to say that his last two tournaments, Båstad and Estoril, have been a bit disappointing! Expectations were huge for Båstad, and after a good first round, he got absolutely destroyed by Baez. Something I didn't like in that match was that he more or less gave up halfway through... and later followed it by losing against Skatov from a winning position in Estoril. We did not see him travel across the Atlantic to play any hardcourt tournament until now (just two Bundesliga matches).

While it's hard to know what to expect from De Jong (transition to hardcourt, with balls that are notoriously hard to control - especially not having played either Washington or Montreal)... he does have a decent serve and ability to finish points. In his loss to Baez, he was really bothered by the intensity and his inability to set anything up. Michelsen is definitely someone who can take the ball early, but it's not the main part of his playstyle; he tends to be someone who likes to change rhythm and stay solid before striking. Apart from that, it's also not that unusual for Alex to have at least one dip during a match, where he more or less donates away a service game...