Tennis Prediction Lorenzo Musetti vs Aleksandar Vukic: Washington

Washington 🇺🇸

• Yesterday, these two faced off in the first rounds. Terence Atmane defeated Frances Tiafoe in front of his home crowd in three sets. Lorenzo Musetti, on the other hand, played ten games before Matteo Arnaldi retired.

• Ten games prove nothing about the fitness of a player who hadn't played since mid-May. But it proves something else: he hasn't spent anything, and he approaches his second round with fresh legs while everyone else has already given their all.

• On the other side, Aleksandar Vukic arrives in the exact opposite state. Three matches won here since Saturday, two in qualifying then one in the first round, a Challenger title the week before, and almost no games dropped along the way. He's playing the best tennis of his season.

• He's a pure server, the kind to steal a set from anyone in a tiebreak. But he's also a player whose return is by far his weakest point, and who almost never breaks his opponent's serve.

• Against an opponent who doesn't break, the Italian doesn't need to be at 100%. He just needs to hold his service games and seize the only window that will open in each set. Their only previous meeting, in Pune four years ago, went the distance: it can be long, but it remains playable.

• The other part of the ticket is simpler. Atmane is coming off the best match of his season, and he faces an Alejandro Tabilo who has spent his season on clay and left a lot of energy last night to overcome Tallon Griekspoor in three sets.

• I'm not going to claim the Frenchman is on a roll: his win over Tiafoe came at the end of a very long streak without success. But one set is all we expect from him here, and his serve gives it to him even on an off night.

• Two matches at the same time, two different scenarios: a fresh Italian who has to manage a confident server, and a French lefty who just has to do what he knows how to do for one set.