A Pole in China

Majchrzak is definitely the favorite for this match. Is it deserved?

I didn't like Majchrzak's American swing: on top of having a pretty average level of play, he also showed quite a few bad things in terms of attitude. He got a win at the US Open against Mejdedovic, who’s in even worse shape than he is, but before that he had four losses, all of them really fairly mediocre. Then he loses to Vacherot in a match he maybe should have won, but once again he got completely outplayed. I didn’t see his Davis Cup matches, but he struggled against Duckworth and took a bit of a beating against De Minaur, which reinforces my feeling that we don’t have a great version of Majchrzak right now. I tried to look back over the last five or six years to see if he was a regular on the Asian swing. The conclusion is pretty clear: not at all. It almost looks like he avoids this swing or is just unlucky, because sometimes he’ll play one tournament and then not play there at all afterwards. Which is very weird. You can have the same kind of reflection as with Gaston, because Majchrzak is a player who loves indoor tennis and might already be thinking ahead to that swing.

I insist a lot in my analyses on past results during this swing because the conditions are very different from what you find elsewhere. As we saw during the US swing, some players suddenly overperform, almost like magic. I don’t know if we can put Bellucci in that category, but he already has some decent results at certain tournaments in Asia. I also think he’s in a good spell right now since coming back from injury: he’s playing very well and showing an excellent attitude. We’re seeing the good version of him at the moment. I know you often have to be cautious with him, but it would be surprising to see him take this match lightly and lack motivation, given his last few weeks. On top of that, he didn’t have to travel for the Davis Cup and will be very fresh.

Only one head-to-head to go on, and it’s a win for Bellucci. But that goes back a bit and I can’t really rely on it too much. I don’t feel like it’s a great match-up for either one of them. I’d say it’s pretty neutral in that regard and that it comes down more to current form and motivation.