Tennis Prediction Alejandro Tabilo vs Ben Shelton: Washington

Washington 🇺🇸

• A quarter-final between two left-handers doesn't happen ten times in a season, and it takes away the most basic advantage from the match. Everything a left-hander usually gains on the trajectories, he no longer gains when the one in front of him is also left-handed.

• No one loses more in this little game than Ben Shelton. The outside serve that goes looking for the backhand, the ball that always escapes the same way, it's the foundation of his tennis, and tonight he's sending it to a player who's been living with these trajectories forever, because they're his own.

• The other half of the match remains, and that's where the American is the most perfectible. The return is the least accomplished part of his game, and it's exactly what he's going to be asked to do against a left-hander who serves well.

• His week already tells something. 2 matches in Washington, 2 times 3 sets: Martin Damm took a set from him, Ugo Humbert took the first, and both went looking for his serve. A player who controls his subject doesn't leave the door open twice in a row.

• Alejandro Tabilo, on the other hand, is coming out of the most accomplished match of the two. Terence Atmane dismissed in 2 sets, 10 games less than Shelton in his legs since last night, and a tie-break won 8 points to 6 that says what he's worth when it gets tense.

• I'm not going to gloss over the gap: 30th in the world against 8th, a season built on clay, a hard court record that hasn't been impressive this year. Shelton is the favorite in this quarter-final, there's no debate about that.

• Except that nothing I play is settled by the winner. The only question that matters is whether the American is going to roll out or have to fight, and since his first match he's been fighting.

• For me, this quarter-final is going to look like his first two matches of the week: an American victory in the end, snatched set after set, with a Chilean who won't have just endured.