A different kind of fatigue.

Quite a few questions to ask yourself about this encounter, which could be an absolute banger.

Hurkacz lost in the final against Fokina two days ago in Chengdu and now has to keep going. His week was quite long with a lot of tight, hard-fought matches. You have to be careful about the quick turnaround on his side, but it’s not something that really worries me about him at first glance. I also have to say that I liked the level he showed all week. It wasn’t perfect, but I found him proactive offensively and always solid in defense. His serve quality fluctuated but is still a huge weapon. He should once again be tough to beat this week in principle.

I have a bit more to say about Tien and about the potential fatigue on his side, which is different. The American is one of the players we’re monitoring closely because he’s made a crazy number of trips in the last few days. After the US Open, he went back towards the Czech Republic to play the Davis Cup, where I found him rather disappointing. Then he went off to the Laver Cup where, again, I found him pretty disappointing in terms of his performances, and I have the feeling he hurt his knee against Zverev. It’s true that in the moment, he was holding his knee in the second set, but I didn’t feel like it was anything very serious. Apparently, his knee is quite heavily taped, which is rather worrying. To top it off, he then has to come all the way to China. The number of travel hours has been huge over the last few days and inevitably, it’s a pretty disrupted preparation for this tournament.

He’s getting back to conditions that are excellent for his game and to a tournament where he did particularly well last year, with a final and an exceptional number of wins against good players. I do think these are good conditions. In any case, he can play well anywhere, but I have to admit that his recent matches haven’t convinced me at all. If on top of that there’s a slight knee issue and a lot of fatigue, I’m not very optimistic. I think there is a slight knee problem and a lot of fatigue, I’m not very optimistic. If on top of that he has a slight knee problem and a lot of fatigue, I’m not very optimistic..