Swiss Open Tennis Semi-Finals
Who Wins
Thiem ML @11/8 vs Berrettini 10am GMT
There’s no denial that Thiem is the better clay player of the two and is clearly climbing up the rankings with some amazing tennis. The Austrian had a few difficult tiebreaks since the start of this good run in Bastad but he managed to deal with those difficult situations and every win was really important to obtain the confidence that he needed to finally show what he can do in a tennis court. After that wrist injury it’s true that he was trash for a lot of time and was struggling to find his game but Tennis is all about phases and matchups and we need to know why a player is winning or losing and for Dominic Thiem everything should get better from now on. Against Delbonis and Varillas he had huge performances but what’s most impressive is that I knew he can perform even better. Thiem’s Clay record talks for itself with 149 wins and 60 losses in the ATP level and a 28-9 record in Roland Garros reaching the finals twice in 2018 and 2019 where he lost to Nadal.
Berrettini is an outstanding player and he has won 11 matches in a row which is great but doesn’t tell me much about his Clay form since 9 of those 11 wins were in Grass and he left Wimbledon with COVID so who knows what would have happened there. The Italian has an amazing 1st serve and powerful forehand and his Clay record is actually quite solid but against Clay specialists not so much only winning 2 matches against top 20 players. At this tournament he managed to beat Gasquet who was struggling physically but he almost lost against Martinez who gave up a 5-1 tiebreak lead. In that match we saw how exploitable Berrettini’s backhand actually is and even the forehand when players can use some spin and hit some baseline shots
For me Thiem should use his one handed backhand cross court most of the time to force Berretini’s backhand which is awful and way too inconsistent. When it comes to Thiem’s forehand he actually uses a lot of topspin on it and sends it wide and long to the baseline so his opponent might not have enough opportunities to get clear cut forehand winners. Berrettini needs to be perfect on his serve if he wants to win this and I prefer to take my chances on the player who has many more weapons especially after seeing Martinez somewhat close to defeat Matteo in straight sets.
Casper Ruud 2-0 @4/6 vs Albert Ramos-Vinolas
Casper Ruud is by far the stand out player here and will in our thoughts win in straight sets to get into a much needed final to boost his ranking. Ramos-Vinolas has played well to get into this semi but at 34 is running out of chances but unfortunately we don’t see this been one.
The Swiss Open and originally known as the Swiss International Championships is a tennis tournament held in Gstaad, Switzerland. Held since 1898, the tournament is played on outdoor clay courts.
Image Credit: atptour.com
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