Tennis Prediction Coleman Wong vs Darwin Blanch: Los Cabos

• These two have been following each other for a month without ever crossing paths. Lincoln, then Bloomfield Hills: same tour of American Challengers, same weeks, same locker rooms, and it takes arriving in Mexico for them to finally meet.

• Except they didn't live the same thing there. Coleman Wong won matches there, two rounds in Lincoln and one in Bloomfield Hills. Darwin Blanch left without a single victory on the hard court.

• And it's not a two-week accident. The young American is 18 years old, a real talent and a decent season, but he built it elsewhere: his best records of the year are on clay and grass. The hard court remains, by far, his poorest surface.

• For the Hong Kong player, it's exactly the opposite. The vast majority of his wins this season are on this surface, and it's there that he climbed in the rankings.

• The match-up goes in the same direction. Wong holds his serve much more easily than his opponent, and in a match where no one has any benchmarks on the other, it's the player who serves best who sets the conditions first.

• The argument on the other side is real and I won't sweep it away: an 18-year-old left-hander entering an ATP draw has nothing to lose, he can take three classes in three months, and he'll play without the slightest pressure in the first round.

• But between the two, there are more than a hundred places in the rankings and a much wider level gap on hard court than what the odds suggest. It's this gap that I'm buying tonight.

• I see him winning, maybe after three sets because these matches often cling on, but with a serve that makes the difference when it comes to concluding.

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