Autumn = Indoor Tennis
According to my family calendar, the start of autumn is scheduled for September 22nd. Nevertheless, since my mind is full of tennis, autumn officially starts today with the ATP Tour and Challengers moving indoors in St. Petersburg, Metz, Columbus and Glasgow. The Challenger event in Glasgow, Scotland features an interesting first-round match between the German Benjamin Hassan and Luca Vanni from Italy.
Hassan's Journey
These days, you see many tennis players becoming pros at the age of 15, like Carlos Alcaraz on the men's or Cori Gauff on the women's side. Benjamin Hassan has not been that kind of player. After finishing school, he started his studies to become a teacher. At the age of 21, he competed in his first challenger event while still studying. One year later, in 2018, he decided to turn pro.
Hassan's parents are from Lebanon and despite being a German citizen, he represents Lebanon in Davis Cup since last year. This becomes relevant today as we just come off a Davis Cup weekend. In a thrilling tie, Lebanon lost 2-3 to Uzbekistan at home, despite Hassan's two wins in singles.
Fatigue vs. Fragility
It has been an intense weekend for Hassan and therefore, he should be pretty knackered. The best flight connection from Beirut to Glasgow still requires one connecting flight and takes 8+ hours. Safe to say that Hassan won't compete at the highest level today. However, the match is the last one scheduled today and his opponent, Luca Vanni, has his own problems to solve.
The Italian is going through a horrible year. His last win is dating back to February. Since then, Vanni has lost 11 straight matches. The last win took place in Bergamo at his home Challenger, which was played on indoor hards. So at least there is hope he can turn his season around again in Glasgow.
Low quality, high quantity (of games)?
Looking at these two players, I can't imagine one running away with it. Vanni's confidence level has to be at the very bottom while Hassan's fitness level can't be at 100 percent.
I expect a close match in which Vanni relies on his serve, but still gets troubled by Hassan's variety. The Italian needs a good rhythm to perform well and Hassan won't give him that. If both were at the top of their game, Hassan would definitely be value for me, but as that's not the case, I go with the over 21.5 games which seems like a generous line to me for a hard court match in which no player should have the tools to win comfortably.
