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Adam Walton has lost six straight matches, and struggled a lot recently. His last win was almost two months ago in Atlanta, where he won against Kecmanovic in the first round. The last match he played was at the US Open, where he lost against Muller in the first round of the tournament. His biggest results so far were at the challenger tour level. Walton is lurking around the top 100, so he will hope for a decent result here in Chengdu to cement his top 100 spot.
Lukas Klein has lost four straight matches. Similar to Adam, Lukas had his last win almost two months ago. Klein played for Slovakia last week in the Davis Cup, where he lost both of his matches in straight sets as we predicted. Lukas has not had any remarkable results this season, which is the main reason why he is outside the top 100. Last year around this time, Klein skipped the Asian swing, and spent time playing at the challenger tour level.
According to the bookies, this should be a 50-50 match. We believe that Adam will eventually find his form, and start winning matches. He has great talent, and we expect him to dominate against Klein, who is also out of form.
Juncheng Shang has won three of his last five matches. The last match he played was at the US Open, where he lost in the third round against Shang in five sets. It was a solid tournament for the young Chinese talent. Shang is looking to get into the top 50 in the rankings, so he is hoping for a solid result in front of his own crowd. Shang has been consistent throughout the whole season. He is still only 19 years old, and with such talent, we believe that he will eventually become a top 10 player.
Kei Nishikori has won three of his last five matches. He is slowly, but surely coming back. His last match was last week in the Davis Cup, where he won against Mejia in straight sets. So far this season, Nishikori has played only 16 matches, and has a winning 9-7 record. Kei had his biggest result of the season in Montreal, where he reached the quarterfinals, losing against Arnaldi in straight sets. Nishikori loves to play on fast courts such as this one.
According to the bookies, Shang is the slight favorite in this matchup. We respect Kei, and his comeback story, but he is still far away from his best level. Shang is the biggest Chinese player right now, so he will have the crowd on his side. Juncheng had some decent results this season, and we expect him to continue in that fashion.
