Roast Struffy

Struff finished his first-round match completely wiped out with a cramp and was close to throwing up on the court, he really had to dig deep.

The conditions are extreme and the German has quite a frame to move around the court. He played a pretty high-level first set without being amazing, then basically gave away the second to refocus for the third set, but even then he was spent and had to serve-and-volley over and over to shorten the rallies as much as possible. I didn't even feel Boruchaga was that great against him. In the end, when I look back on his match, it’s relatively average. Sure, the conditions are fast enough for him, but as I said, he’s already dug deep. We’ll have to see if he’s got anything left in the tank.

A bit more physical freshness on Tabilo’s side, since he was able to recover after going out very early in the Montreal tournament, where the schedule was a bit too demanding for him after Washington. He still went up a break twice against Hurkacz, but couldn’t finish it off and got punished. He’d said he was eagerly waiting for the hard-court season to return, and so far we can see he’s performing well, on top of being highly motivated in this part of the world where there are always a few Chileans in the stands to push him to dig deep. The level is good, the physical condition should be good, all the lights are green for him.

Strangely enough, they’ve never played each other. Even if Tabilo is labeled as an offensive player, we’ve seen recently that when he’s feeling good physically, he can also be hard to hit through. That quality is very valuable before facing Struff. I rate the Chilean slightly better on serve as well, because his lefty spin is really going to bother the German and pull him out wide. Even if it was only cramps for Struff in the previous round, it’s going to be very hot and humid again tomorrow, and I don’t trust him on that front. It was really touch and go, and he can consider himself lucky to have gotten through. But this time, it looks a bit tricky, both tennis-wise and in every other respect.