Tennis Parlay Nuno Borges + Blockx: Estoril

Estoril 🇵🇹

• Two favorites in Estoril, two last 16 matches, one common thread: each one is dragging a ball and chain. Burruchaga has heavy legs, Jacquet a half-stolen ticket. That's what I'm building the duo on.

• The Estoril week, the Portuguese live it apart. It's the home event of the year, they manage to play a notch above their average level, an energy that the other weeks don't give them. Borges is the standard-bearer of the bunch, and he presents himself fresh, winner of his first round against Luz in two straight sets.

• Burruchaga, on the other hand, arrives worn out. Semi-finalist in Umag last week, he had to battle 2h29 and three sets to eliminate Wawrinka on Tuesday, a 41-year-old man who was playing there his last match on clay. Add the arm that we see strapped on him since Umag, and you have a body that is gasping at the worst moment.

• I'm not taking him lightly though: Burruchaga remains a true clay-courter, more than twenty wins on the surface this season. But Borges has the level above, the crowd behind him and fresh legs facing an opponent who has given too much in the last ten days.

• On the other side, Blockx will face Kyrian Jacquet. The Frenchman is in the last 16 because Merida, crowned in Umag three days earlier, arrived with his head elsewhere and handed him the match after taking the first set. A gift, not a performance.

• I'm not overhyping the Belgian, it's she who carries the risk: Blockx is also coming back cold, out of a bye and a misstep in Umag. But in pure quality and tactical reading, the gap with a qualifier repechage is too clear for me to bypass.

• The duo therefore piles up two favorites who each have one more reason than the odds to go through: freshness and fervor for Borges, the tactical approach for Blockx. I see them prevailing.