Tennis Prediction Quentin Halys vs Yannick Hanfmann: Kitzbuhel

Kitzbuhel 🇦🇹

• All week long, Quentin Halys and Yannick Hanfmann have been breaking serve left and right. In this semi-final, I think that's going to stop abruptly, and that's where I'm going to look for the over 10.5 games in the first set.

• Because so far, the two of them have spent their tournament demolishing clay-courters, Djere then Navone for the Frenchman, Baez for the German, players that they can take by surprise. For the first time this week, each of them is facing a serve as heavy as their own.

• And the setting is perfect for them. We're playing at altitude, in dry and light air that accelerates the ball and turns good serves into nightmares for the returner. It's the kind of court where two big servers end up rolling through their service games one after the other.

• Halys is arriving hot on this specific plan: against Navone in the quarters, he won 80% of the points behind his first serve, and his first set went all the way to 7-5. Twelve games, exactly what I'm looking for.

• Hanfmann, for his part, is having a love affair with this tournament, four semi-finals here and a final in 2020, and this week his serve has dominated the proceedings, up to 91% of points behind his first serve against Trungelliti. At almost 35 years old, he's still protecting his serve like a parade.

• The slip-up, I saw it like everyone else: Hanfmann crushed Baez 6-3, 6-1, and Halys converted half of his break points against Navone. These two also know how to give as good as they get, and if one of them breaks the other's serve right away, my set can close out 6-4.

• But breaking a clay-courter who's pushing and breaking a cannon who's rolling, that's not the same job. Face to face, the break point opportunities are going to dry up all of a sudden, and that's precisely where the games start to pile up.

• I see a set where each of them locks down their serve, waiting for the slightest letup from the other. This kind of serving battle between two big servers almost always goes beyond the tenth game.