Fire and ice.

Fonseca is going to raise his voice, fire himself up and put on a show with a crowd that will surely be completely on his side. Meanwhile, VDZ will be staring at the ground and not saying a word after hitting insane winners.

Despite a win over Tsitsipas, then Ruud, and only a loss to Shelton, the eventual winner of the tournament, I’m left with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth about Fonseca’s tournament, because I just didn’t find him very good, plain and simple. Against Stefanos, it was really bad, I’m not afraid to say it, and then against Ruud he mainly played a high-level second set. And that’s it. Against Shelton, I found him rather flat; sure, he gets the break in both sets, but nothing crazy happens. He ends up losing the sets each time quite logically, I’d say. It was also his first official tournament in a while; I don’t want to go too hard on him, but he didn’t leave me with a great impression, with, as always, quite a few errors and a bit too much aggressiveness. I don’t find him very good on return either. Anyway, I still need to be convinced, because you can still see the potential, but unlike a guy like Jodar who keeps winning matches over and over again, that’s not really the case with Fonseca.

He’s not going to have much room for error because VDZ is a head‑taker and the Dutchman seems to be in great form right now. He was supposed to play his friend Griekspoor in the first round, but ended up facing lucky loser Shevchenko, whom he dominated quite comfortably. He’s excellent on return and can counter brilliantly. When he’s somewhat motivated to play and the match fires him up, he can play his best tennis. That’s when he’s at his best, I’d even say. And that’s especially when, in general, you can try to trust him, because it’s not when he’s a 1.40 favorite that you should be backing him; that’s not his profile.

One-all in the head-to-head with one win on each side, and I don’t really feel like the match-up is great for our friend Fonseca, because VDZ could absorb his power before redirecting it. If Fonseca is a bit messy, he could get properly punished. For me, the bets are more likely to lean towards the Dutchman.