At least Arthur knows what to expect this time.

Rinderknech got caught off guard by Draxl in the Davis Cup and said he simply didn’t know what to expect. At least we can be sure he knows Molcan, since he’s already played him twice, including once this year.

I was really surprised to see Arthur’s statement claiming he knew nothing about Draxl, even though he’s a player who’s often hovered around the hundredth spot, and on top of that, a player from the team he was supposed to face. That’s in the past now and Arthur has already bounced back well after that setback, since he played a great match against Auger-Aliassime the next day. Yes, it was a loss, but I liked the reaction and the level of play. He says he went back a bit to basics and to what he knows how to do, and he was also better prepared for who he was facing and what to expect. Now he’s up against a profile he knows well in Molcan. Arthur’s season has been rather average, but Shanghai is next week, and what better way to prepare for defending his final there than by having a good tournament in Tokyo?

He’ll be up against the Slovak who came through qualifying, having eliminated Kopriva and then Trungelliti. It’s not the toughest path, but they’re two players who are generally quite tricky to handle. I watched a bit of both matches. I wasn’t 100% convinced by the playing conditions, which are much faster than expected in Beijing this season. On the one hand, that’s good for Molcan, who can gain in power and flesh out his game, but I find it much harder to defend on these courts. Inevitably, he loses some of his shine as well. The bounce isn’t very high either, and it naturally reminds me of a somewhat similar recent match-up with JM Cerundolo against Rinderknech during the US swing. Granted, the Frenchman lost that match, but it was mainly physically that he lost it. Otherwise, he was fairly comfortable. He’s generally good when he has time and can set up his game, which should be the case here. He also has the forward-moving game to come in and finish points and not stay too far back on the baseline.

Arthur leads the head-to-head 2–0. Nothing extraordinary, but the match-up is fine for the Frenchman, and above all the conditions are much more favorable for him than for his opponent. I’m also quietly hoping to see him out for revenge after his two Davis Cup losses. He’s a player with a serious ego who could feed off that and play well right away.