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Kovalik missed out on 5 match points last week

The Frenchman was the No.1 seed and the defending champion in Cherbourg last week but Paire was too big an obstacle. Kovalik has no wins this season indoors but there were a few close matches, especially against Authom who had to save match points in three separate games

De Schepper is 203cm tall and seems like a friendly giant, especially when he starts talking about his carrier. He's always calm, never promising things he can't deliver, and thus never disappointing much. He went pro relatively late - at the age of 22 and fought for Top 50 last season. That was unrealistic. Even though he claimed that he likes clay surfaces, these are the conditions in which he is capable of doing his best. He went even further from the Top 100 last week as he failed to defend the title at Cherbourg. When asked about the last season, he said:

- Even though I dropped places in the table, I still managed to make it into AO and that's good. Most importantly, I didn't struggle with injuries and that enables me to keep on working on my game. The results will follow.

De Schepper opened the tournament last week as the defending champions and the No.1 seed against Guez, who beat him in all three previous head-to-head matches. Guez also beat him in the final qualifying round recently but Kenny finally won convincingly and then went on to beat Karatsev in the second round. De Schepper met Paire in the next round and didn't stand a chance. Paire won 23 out of 25 first points serves and saved both break-points. If Kenny hasn't saved 7 break-point, he would have lost even more convincingly.

Kovalik is 4-16 indoors and without a win this season. He may be waiting for the clay-surface tournaments to start and he may have nothing to do here but the truth is somewhere in between because he does gave a pretty good game - the mental part is where he lack in. He managed to lose last week after winning the first set against Authom in 20 minutes and then let go to lose the second set. That is when the real show started. He failed to use two tied match points when serving at 5-3 and then another three later on. Authom forced the tie-break and won it easily.

Even though those kind of defeats wreck confidence, the fact remains that Kovalik has what it takes to put up a fight indoors. Marchenko beat him, but the Ukrainian has been doing great the whole season, occasionally even at ATP level. Zopp struggled with him recently, Kovalik lost to Mertl late last year, has a few set points against Berankis. What I'm trying to say it, there has to come a time when things fall into place for Kovalik too.

Kovalik has a bad record indoors; only four wins in 20 matches, but he's not beaten easily (only by Marchenko). Kovalik took over the margin Zopp and Authom indoors. Last year it was Mertl, Berankis, Ilhan and Petzschner. All proven indoor players. Only Kudryavtsev didn't take him onto more games, but he went into a tie-break with him. Here the conditions are faster than last week and De Schepper won't have an easy job. Even though he's the favorite, I doubt he could beat the Slovak without a tie-break, and I wouldn't be surprised if the match goes into the third set.