#safiullin just made a final

[bluespring864]

Shanghai draws are out and I am once again asking why the tennis gods hate andy murray

[fritzes]

my thoughts on some of these insane acapulco first round matches:

draper v paul: for a third time this year, these two will play each other. yes, three matches in two months. their first two matches are split, and rather predictably jack won the best of 3 match and tommy won the best of 5 match. I think that’s pretty indicative of how this is gonna go: if jack is healthy and can keep his stamina up, I think he can probably win. tommy made back-to-back finals for two weeks, and he’s probably tired. that said, those finals show that he’s in good form while I’m not really sure how jack is playing right now

safiullin v tsitsipas: tbh, I think safiullin wins this match. stefanos just isn’t there right now, and he hits way too many unforced errors. he has to be consistent if he wants to beat the absolute wall that is safiullin, and consistency just isn’t something he’s capable of right now

ruud v eubanks: it’s hard to predict this match because casper is just so unpredictable. I watched his match against tsitsipas in los cabos, and he would play one point absolutely incredibly and then make a ridiculous unforced error on the next. this is one of those matches wholly dependent on just one of the competitor’s levels. I said the same thing about the casper/stefanos match: if casper is on for most of the match, he’ll win, not much that chris can do. but if he’s off, chris’ serve is gonna destroy him and he’ll probably lose

arnaldi v fritz: ohhhh boy. here we go. so, taylor is obviously the very heavy favorite. not just in terms of rankings, but also his general tennis ability. his serve is obviously much better than matteo’s - taylor may have a pretty mediocre first serve percentage, but his power (and more importantly, placement) makes up for that. matteo also has an inconsistent serve, but even when it goes right it isn’t nearly as dominant as taylor’s. in general, I would also say taylor has better and more consistent groundstrokes. however, I will give matteo the edge on movement, he’s very quick and can get to most shots. taylor did well to add a good drop shot to his game, but I don’t think it will work that well on matteo. so yes, taylor will most likely win, but if matteo is having one of those days where he’s suddenly playing like a top 30 player (which tends to happen with him), he can definitely trouble taylor. this will either be taylor winning in straight sets or a tense, tiebreak-filled three setter

[stateofsport211]

🎥 ATP Challenger Livestream (via website)

The third set of this match intrigued me in a way. It was a tight set characterized by "who made fewer errors" on returning.

Ben Shelton initially led 4-2 until Roman Safiullin found his return back to counter Ben Shelton's serves. Roman targeted much of Ben's shots (?) and it was proven working until this turning point.

The way Ben lost his service game was because of his post-serve return error just like this (his BH being targeted?!). However, a point after, Ben did a double fault, much to his dismay, hence Roman won his 2nd Challenger in 3 weeks (first in Nursultan) and entered the Top 100 (finally!) in #97.