TipResumen

PREVIEW

It has been very interesting to see the development of Kevin Anderson in recent years and the hard work he has put in has been rewarded with his best tennis being played in the last couple of years. The South African was a US Open Finalist in 2017 so he does have some big points to defend in the next month to keep his World Ranking as high as it is, but you have to give Anderson a lot of credit for continuing to produce a consistent brand of tennis. Anderson is always going to be dangerous on the hard courts with the serve he has and the conditions in Cincinnati may only aid him that much more. He has also improved his return game in the last couple of years on this surface which has helped Anderson in producing his best results in his career, although no one will confuse the top ten player with the top returners on the Tour. However that side of his game is also aided by the very strong serving displays which does put pressure on opponents to hold onto their own serve. On Thursday it will be David Goffin who tries to do that having had a tough couple of weeks on the hard courts despite some decent numbers in 2018. There is no doubting the quality Goffin brings to the court and he will be a big favourite to win any rally in this match that develops to more than five hits. The serve has perhaps been a little more vulnerable in the last couple of weeks than Goffin would have liked and that has to be a concern when going up against someone like Anderson who will feel he can take some free shots on the return if his own serve is working well. Much of the outcome of this match will depend if Goffin can bring his strong returning numbers into this one. I am not that convinced it will be the case having really struggled against the likes of Stefanos Tsitsipas in Washington and Milos Raonic in Toronto. Kevin Anderson is a superior server to both of those players at the moment and I think the South African will be able to exert some scoreboard pressure to win this match and crack the David Goffin serve to cover this number.



PREDICTION

The big server may just exert enough pressure on the scoreboard to edge out David Goffin over two sets.