Tennis Prediction Christopher O’Connell vs Jaime Faria: Montreal

🇨🇦 Montreal

• Jaime Faria is having a very good season, and he's doing it on clay. 29 of his 41 wins this year have been on clay, with a Stan Wawrinka and a Botic Van de Zandschulp on his list of victims. The record is real, it's just filed in the wrong cabinet for tonight.

• Because we're playing on Canadian hard courts, with balls that fly. On this surface, the Portuguese has only a handful of matches this season, and his last real reference dates back to Estoril, on clay, more than a week ago.

• Christopher O'Connell arrives with the opposite profile. 32 years old, a career built on these types of surfaces, a serve that remains his best weapon and a season that, while average, has been played almost entirely on hard and grass.

• The match-up is not trivial either. The Portuguese is a returner above all, and his weak point remains the return. Facing someone who repeatedly puts first serves on a court that doesn't forgive, the hurdle is higher than it appears.

• I'm not going to sell the Australian for what he's not: his season is mediocre, fewer wins than losses, and he hasn't won a match since Wimbledon. It's a bet on a profile and a surface, not on momentum.

• But between a clay court player discovering the conditions and a hard court veteran playing his tournament of the year, the displayed price seems backwards to me.