Magic potion.

Prizmic is going to need a serious boost to raise his level and, above all, to hold up physically if he wants to win.

It’s no surprise, but Prizmic really wasn’t at his best in his first round. It took him a whole set to get into his match, and even once he was in it I mostly felt he was ahead because Shevchenko was worse than him. He was forcing himself, trying to pump himself up, but we’ll have to come back another day for the level of play. He also almost choked after having led by a wide margin, it was a rollercoaster match. He also took several small MTOs to get massages because cramps were coming on and his legs felt heavy, his physical condition has been shaky for weeks now and he’s already had to dig deep mentally and physically.

Much calmer match for Paul, who still lost a set after a little lapse in concentration but nothing serious. There was also a Wong in top form who tried everything with quite a bit of success before fading, not easy to handle for Paul, but on his side I thought the match was pretty good for an opening round, which is often his weak point. Tournament nicely underway and a manageable second round on top of that, he’s supposed to be better than Prizmic over the long haul and given the questionable level of the Croatian at the moment, I don’t feel like he’s in the kind of week where he’s going to pull off a big result.

I don’t really feel like trusting Paul at such a low odds price but I don’t see him losing; we’ll have to watch live how well he’s able to attack intelligently without smashing into Prizmic’s good defense, but logically with his net game it should be fine.