Tennis Prediction Blockx vs Cobolli: Cincinnati

🇺🇸 #Cincinnati

• Simply compare the two summers. On hard courts this season: 18 wins for 8 losses for Blockx, 10 wins for 8 losses for Cobolli.

• For the full year: 34 matches won against 28. The ranking says top 10 against world no. 32, but the ranking pays for last year's results. This year's matches, however, say equality, and rather an advantage to the Belgian.

• The current form tells the same story. On Saturday, Blockx dispatched Navone in two sets: 11 aces, 87% of points won behind his first serve. Cobolli needed three sets and a lot of patience against Kecmanovic, dropping 8 double faults. And in his last 6 matches on tour, the Italian has lost 4.

• There is also a precedent, and not just any one. Their only duel was in April in Monte-Carlo, on clay, Cobolli's preferred surface. Result: 6-3 6-3 for Blockx. When you beat a top 10 player so clearly on his own turf, you don't tremble when facing him on a neutral court.

• The over, it's the same reasoning seen from another angle: two players of equal level, one of whom is a big server, that makes for long sets. We need 23 games. A tight set plus a normal set are enough, and a possible third set pays the ticket on its own.

• The risk, I name it: Cobolli is not world no. 10 by chance, his best level exceeds anything Blockx has faced so far. If he beats him tonight, too bad for us. But his whole summer says he's left it in Europe.