Time for revenge!

Struff beat Medvedev this season at Wimbledon, but it was mostly a huge mess from the Russian, who led in absolutely every set and completely fell apart when it was time to close it out.

The observation is quite simple: Medvedev dominates the head-to-head with already 10 wins for only 3 losses, including 2 on grass. With the quality of his return and his court coverage, he gets a lot more balls back against Struff than most players do and forces the German to overpress. On top of that, with Medvedev having regained confidence lately, the conditions and the match-up put a lot of things in his favor. Maybe Struff still has some arguments to make, but after months where you could bet against Medvedev without any problem, the trend seems to be reversing.

You always have to be wary of Struff with his ultra-aggressive, forward-minded game. The German has found a sort of momentum again with a good match at the US Open, but he wasn’t able to follow through. In the first round, he beat Tirante. Maybe he’s in the process of rebuilding a good run. I’d say that with his profile, he has a better chance of doing well against Medvedev than Carreño Busta. The Spaniard can’t make the difference with his serve or his power, and his forward game is nonexistent. At least Struff has his weapons, and they come naturally to him. If Medvedev is a bit tired or has an off day, Struff’s profile is quite interesting to exploit his weaknesses. But as I said above, it doesn’t really look like we’re dealing with that version of Medvedev at the moment.