How long is the road?

Will the Italian be able to get back on track quickly?

Bellucci is someone who has continuously struggled to string together good tournaments (even matches) on the main tour for a while now. He is a player with high peaks and low lows ;) This leads to a player who can be fantastic to watch when he is in form, while the bad version of him is almost painful to watch, a complete error-fest. We saw some good matches from him during the grass swing; now I wonder if he can keep building or if the "restart" will take some time. I do quite like the conditions for him; I really prefer him on faster surfaces... despite having a great toolkit, he tends to make the wrong decisions when he has too much time to think - therefore, it's better to just play and let it happen by instinct. His match against Baez was not great, but he held on decently for a while. Also, while Baez is not the best hardcourt player, he can still be a bit challenging, especially when coming back from injury, since we have seen him play quite aggressively and fast, right out of the gates.

Svajda's results since coming back on hardcourt are not that straightforward. His matches in Washington we can't really rely on, since he was dealing with some exhaustion from the heat. In Montreal, he was losing to Shapovalov before the Canadian got physically hampered and eventually retired. Then, a decent showing against Fils, perhaps playing with a bit of freedom after advancing from the first round. I guess I could say that I find his level quite decent at the moment, nothing more and nothing less. For him, reaching the fourth round in Roland Garros and then the third round in Wimbledon was quite unexpected, so it will be interesting to see if he can carry this momentum properly into the US hardcourt swing. I do think the conditions in Cincinnati should fit him better than the ones in Washington and Los Cabos, especially with the lower bounce.

In the end, I don't think this is an easy matchup for Svajda. Bellucci tends to do well against these players who are solid all-around but don't do anything exceptionally well. My main concern for the Italian is his ability to stay solid for long enough, without giving the match away with too many errors...