The Italian derby.

Fourth match-up between two players who must know each other inside out.

It's Darderi who's leading 2–1, but the first matches are starting to date a bit. I think that yes, in general, he's the stronger of the two, because he has a better mentality and a higher level of play. Bellucci can have flashes of brilliance over the course of a season, but his consistency leaves something to be desired. I'd say I pick Darderi as the winner most of the time if I had to bet blindly every time they play each other. Except this time, the latest info and recent matches don’t really lean in Darderi’s favor, in my opinion. He just played a bad match in Cincinnati and without much conviction. He’s a player with a lot of fire, but he has to really push himself to play well when his tennis isn’t clicking perfectly. He managed to do that in Montreal, but for a little while now, his level of play hasn’t been great. He’s playing with fire, you could say. As soon as it was too hard to find motivation, he completely gave up in Cincinnati and could easily do the same again in a small tournament.

It’s a lot more positive when it comes to Bellucci, who’s been showing a good level since his return from injury. He was playing really well before Wimbledon and since he’s been back on court, you can feel he’s in good shape, almost like he’s got ants in his legs. This is exactly the kind of tournament where he can manage to play some big matches and be really tough to beat. His first round against Landaluce was good but marred by his lack of ruthlessness in the second set and also simply because, on the other side of the net, Landaluce is doing anything and everything at the moment. Bellucci just had to put the ball in the court and patiently wait for his opponent’s errors. Normally, Darderi isn’t going to give him that many and he’ll have to do more. But I still want to highlight Bellucci’s good form. He’s the one playing the better tennis right now, I’d say.

The match is still on Darderi’s racket, and if he’s motivated enough and makes this tournament a real goal, he seems stronger than the two to me. It depends a lot on that. We don’t really have any guarantee that this will be the case, and I even get the feeling it’s the kind of tournament where he could just show up, play a bad match, and leave early to prepare for the US Open. Verdict tomorrow.