Tennis Prediction Jack Draper vs Alex Michelsen: Washington

🇺🇸 Washington

• This spot not only requires Jack Draper to win this match, it requires him to start it strongly. This is an additional demand when talking about a returning player, and yet that's where I find him best equipped.

• Because in the first games of a match, what speaks is raw power and the first ball. Draper serves harder than Alex Michelsen and he hits heavier than him: he doesn't need a long observation round to impose his game.

• On the other hand, the American is a player of precision and rhythm. He wins when the match settles in, when he has read what's coming from the other side and can send the problem back to his opponent. Taking someone by the throat from the start, that's not his way.

• Fundamentally, when the two players are at their best, it's not the same level. Draper reached a quarter-final at Indian Wells this season and a semi-final at Eastbourne before the summer, and his ceiling on hard courts is that of a player who has seen the top 5.

• I'm not going to make Michelsen a mere extra, that would be dishonest. He beat Taylor Fritz at Indian Wells this year, he just won a Challenger tournament, and he's arriving here with matches in his legs that the Briton doesn't have.

• The legitimate concern is the arm. Draper has spent the year coming back: missed Roland-Garros, missed Wimbledon, a ranking that tells more about that season than his tennis. A comeback is never an exact science.

• But his last tournament was a semi-final at Eastbourne, and he's attacking this American tour with Andy Murray in his corner. A player without bearings doesn't reach a semi-final three weeks earlier.

• The scenario I expect is simple: a start where the lefty's first ball makes the difference, a first set that falls on his side, and a match that doesn't escape him after that.