Tennis Prediction Jiri Lehecka vs Cameron Norrie: Los Cabos

#LosCabos 🇲🇽

• The big news of the week in Los Cabos is not a result, it's an announcement: Jiri Lehecka has just officially announced the arrival of Frédéric Fontang, the man who accompanied Félix Auger-Aliassime for nearly ten years, up to the top 5 and the semi-finals of a Grand Slam. And the collaboration starts here, tonight.

• A world #12 doesn't bring in a coach of this caliber to an ATP 250 event in Mexico just to make up the numbers. These first matches under a new coaching staff carry something special: they're playing to show something, and I like being behind a player who has things to prove.

• On the other side, I take Coleman Wong seriously, and for good reason: I played him in the first round. He's been chaining matches on the American hard courts for weeks, he knows these courts, he's the most seasoned opponent possible for a comeback.

• But there are two levels between them. Wong is still building himself up, between the main tour and Challengers, while Lehecka is coming off a Wimbledon where he only lost in the round of 16, against Zverev, after four sets and a tiebreak.

• The real subject of this ticket is Cameron Norrie against James Duckworth. A match where one's bread and butter falls right on the other's specialty: the Australian lives off his serve, and there's not much Norrie does better on a court than return.

• And the asymmetry goes both ways. On the other side of the net, the return has never been Duckworth's forte: the Briton's serve, which suffers against good returners, shouldn't be troubled tonight.

• I'm not selling Norrie's season, it's been average at best: one win for one loss, and he arrived in Mexico on a six-match losing streak. The counterargument is real, I put it on the table.

• But his start to the tournament answered a lot of questions: 6-4, 6-1 against Kovacevic, serious from the first to the last game. And the draw does the rest, because Duckworth doesn't have the weapons to go after what remains fragile in him.

• Respect for the Australian's week, who had beaten Griekspoor at Wimbledon and knows these courts having reached the second round here last year. But at 34, he left three sets on the court last night and he's playing again tonight, against an opponent who had one more day of rest.

• Two favorites whose opponent can't touch their weak point: it's exactly the kind of night where I want to be on the right side of both.