Review Author MoreTennis
Match of the day preview : Bastad ATP250 tournament on clay in Sweden. Opening match between one of the wildcard receiver and castle defender(Sweden player) Mikael Ymer versus Henri Laaksonen form Switzerland, whom recently reached ATP100 ranking and now he is in his highest positinion ever. Young Swedish player is only 18 years old and 7 years younger than swiss player. This match very important not only for Mikael, but for all young Swedish players and all Sweden, it could say a lot about Swedish tennis academy’s level and bring more people to play tennis.
Mikael Ymer – Youngster, who will be nextgen star for sure, still very young, but already proving he can play good at men’s tennis. This year almost 1,9m height player won Futures title and played very nice tennis one week ago in Bastad Challenger tournament. What we saw in him week ago? A desire, motivation and wonderful style of tennis. In his first match versus Spaniard I. Cervantes after loosing first set 1-6 and in second set trailing by 1-3 , he managed to turn around match and win it, similar situation happened in second match and he still managed to win. We can say for sure he is very tough opponent when playing at home courts with people cheering for him and brother by his side. What we can say about Ymer Mikael playing style? He is strong guy, very good serve fast and hard to reach, but of course he is still young in tennis and he can’t trust his serve sometimes he makes too much double faults in all situations. He is fast, not only young-fast, but he can run very well, reach all balls, a strong forehand and backhand with his ability to catch all balls helps him very well. These playing skills helped him so far to reach 42/19 clay so far and this year 13/8.
Henri Laaksonen – 25 years old player from Switzerland isn’t so famous and good player like Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka, but he still can reach some heights like top50 if he wants to. Recently he became top100 player and now playing well for that ranking place, but what he need to improve to reach at least top50? First thing what we see when play on clay courts is – Slowness, swiss player is too slow on this court and his coordination is not so good, we saw it in Davis cup versus Andrea Seppi whom won this match because of experience and some good tactics like crossovers, different shots and Henri couldn’t know what to do, if he ran one way ball went different way, and no way he will catch fast balls. Second thing he have weakest backhand in Switzerland comparing to elite players like Stan. Henri uses two handed backhand, but its very weak and not aggressive, so stronger opponents uses it against him on clay courts. Let’s talk about good side of this player, 134/109 statistics on clay not so good but, this guy getting better every day, reaching top100 its normal thing if you train a lot and try to do best. Best thing in his play is forehand, very nice style of hitting balls, strong shot often hits ball near the baseline or every corner. 13/9 this season on clay, he also participated in Bastad challenger last week. We can say he getting enough fit for ATP250 tournaments, so in future we won’t see him often in challengers anymore.
Comparing the players : Of course its hard to compare youngster versus some older player, but biggest difference is return of serve from backhand, young Swedish player is better on this side, also have stronger serve, but Henri can serve well too. Almost same height players are very different, Elias is very fast and reads opponent well, on the other hand Henri have more experience for sure.
What to expect : Both players already played in Sweden challenger, so they both will be in good shape and ready for first round, but youngster at home is very dangerous. There will be no surprise if Ymer Elias will win today, he is motivated to show what he can and prove he is old enough for men tennis. We think match can be three setter with deciding set, maybe we will see TB on one of the set’s.
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