The marathon man!

Buse is known for his ability to endure and extend matches. He's a real fighter, but Halys is too, in his own way.

Buse had quite a drop-off after his excellent start to the season and seemed a bit worn out, with a pretty deep fatigue despite the recovery time between tournaments. When we saw him again with much more physical freshness, he won another title in Winston-Salem, but wasn’t able to follow up afterwards at the US Open, once again showing a lot of accumulated fatigue. After that tournament, he was able to rest, but then played two extremely exhausting matches physically and mentally in the Davis Cup. He then went to the Laver Cup, and even if he didn’t play, he spent the whole event there.

With a trip and a new swing that should suit him less, I’m curious to see how he’ll finish the season. I feel like he’s the kind of profile you’d want to avoid with all the accumulated fatigue and the fact that these last two swings aren’t really made for South American players.

Quite a lot of travel and back-to-back matches for Halys as well, but he has already been able to play a tournament in China last week, losing only to Safiullin, who then went on to have a fantastic tournament! He produced an exceptional serving performance, but never managed to find the solution to actually make it count in the rallies.

The Frenchman doesn’t have the most reliable fitness on tour, but he makes up for it with exceptional mental strength and an ability to tighten up his game most of the time when it matters. Conditions in Beijing are a bit faster than expected, which should suit him perfectly.

On the other hand, I’m not really a fan of the match-up because Buse is generally a player who manages to make his opponents rally more than average and to impose his own pace on the game. If Halys doesn’t get any free points on serve and finds himself constantly pinned on the baseline, then for me, he’ll lose. But if he manages to be dominant on serve and put pressure on return, he should be the one to come out on top. A real clash of styles where you have to guess who’s going to impose their game on the other.