The Next Gen..

Samuel has been talked about for some time as a future top player who’s already pretty solid, and indeed..

We’ve already seen Samuel be excellent several times and not far from taking out Mensik at Wimbledon, for example. He’s a complete player, tall, mobile, and capable of doing everything, the new generation basically. He’s just kicked off his tournament by taking advantage of a Machac who was way too far from his best level to hope for anything, but what a level from Samuel! He quickly understood that his role in this match was to counter and let Machac make the errors, he did everything right and maybe that strategy could still work against Lehecka?

He’s not going to be able to defend too much either because the Czech is good in attacking phases and is starting to come to the net a bit, but if Samuel manages to keep him at the back in “neutral” points, then he might manage to make him crack. Lehecka is defending a quarter in this tournament and likes the conditions, he was solid in his first round even if he gave himself a bit of a scare. His second serve was shaky and he didn’t manage to be a killer, luckily Carreno was far off. So I didn’t feel an amazing Lehecka, but he doesn’t seem to enjoy playing Carreno and it’s a R1 of a Slam, I can understand the tension and the fact he’s not playing his best tennis.

Second round more relaxed I imagine, so probably a higher level, but I’ll wait and see because there’s also a serious customer in front of him! I don’t know how much we can already believe in Samuel in this type of match, but the kid is tenacious and not at all impressed by the scale of the occasion each time; in my opinion he’s capable of grabbing his set and wearing Lehecka down!