betprepare.com

Zeballos beat the brillaint Chung easily

Even though the young Korean had the upper hand since he was arealdy adapted to the conditions, the Argentine has done great in the most important points and used three break points chances, while never losing his service game. It seems like he could be very dangerous today as he takes on Kubler, who recorded his only second win this season in the Pezysiezni match

Getty Images

Zeballos is far from his best performances when he was in the Top 100 and even won ATP tournaments. Challengers and the race for Top 100 are his reality the past few years and the beginning of this year only went to confirm that. He doesn't have much to be happy about, having recorded only 4 win until the challenger in Leon last week, never making it into the second round. Things took a new turn in Leon and he managed to reach semifinals to get back into the Top 150.

Conditions in Leon were different though and the surface was hard court. It was therefore questionable how well will he adapt to these conditions and how much power did he have left after a few tough matches.

Zeballos answered all of those questions when recording his top win of the season in the first round. He beat Korea's Chung surprisingly easy even though the opponent made it on the verge of Top 100 after a great start to the season. He played in similar conditions in Houston last season and did his best, which made him the favorite in the Zeballos match.

He fell short of expectations and allowed Zeballos to win easily in the end even though things were much closer on the court than the score suggests. The key points made all the difference and Zeballos was absolutely brilliant in them since he converted 3 out of his 4 break points, while saving all 4 Chung had. Also, he had 81% of first serve points. 

The left-handed Argentine opened well but still have a long road ahead here. Kubler will be the first obstacle on the road. He is an atypical Austrian, who also adjusted to this surface very well.

Interestingly, clay is his favorite surface, which explains why he is atypical. He has played all of his matches this season in these conditions but cannot be very happy with the results since he recorded only one win so far. There were also some injury-struggles but everything is fine now as his match against Przysiezni proved. 

He beat the well-experienced Pole known for a good serve and aggressive game in three sets after making a comeback. Losing the first set clearly motivated Kubler so he went on to dominate the rest of the match, losing only 4 games till the end. Long rallies and 54% of second serve points (compared to Pole's 35) did most of the work. He also had 14 break points,  of which he managed to convert to get into the second round after a bit over 2 hours on the court.

Kubler has never played Zeballos before and judging by the impression he left in the first round, it seems like he will have a much tougher job now. The well-experienced Argentine is getting better and clearly managed to adjust well to these somewhat atypical conditions.