Jodar-Fils in Montreal: the mid-court forehand decides the quarterfinal

Rafael Jodar and Arthur Fils meet again Monday evening in the Masters 1000 Montreal quarterfinals, less than two weeks after the first round in Washington that the Spaniard won 7-6(5), 6-3. In that match Fils served better than his opponent and lost anyway. That's where this quarterfinal starts, because it shows where Jodar takes points off a player who hits harder than him.

Washington: the first serve wasn't enough

In the opening set in Washington Fils put 75% of first serves in and won 83% of those points, with more aces than his opponent. He lost the set in the tiebreak. Then in the second set Jodar converted two break points and never gave the serve back, closing it out in just under two hours.

The mechanism is easy to read. When Fils didn't close the point within the third shot, the rally changed hands. On the second serve, where he can't rely on speed, the Frenchman found himself building the point from a standstill against someone who returns deep and doesn't miss.

On clay the count had been different: in Barcelona, in the semifinal in April, Fils won 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in just under two hours. The high bounce gave him time to turn on the forehand. On this hard court that time isn't there.

The mid-court forehand, the ball Fils produces when the first serve doesn't go in

In the round of 16 Jodar eliminated Jiri Lehecka, the eighth seed, 6-3, 6-3 in one hour and fourteen minutes. He won 24 of the 28 points played on his first serve and left the Czech with 34 unforced errors. But the number that matters most for Monday's quarterfinal is another one: on the forehand played from mid-court Jodar won, according to Tennis Insight, picked up by Tennis Majors, 13 points out of 17, against a tour average of 55%.

That's exactly the ball Fils's game plan generates when the first serve doesn't land at the right pace. The Frenchman builds with the *serve+1* and the forehand acceleration on the third shot. If the first shot doesn't hurt enough, the return comes back to the middle of the court and lands in the exact zone where Jodar tore Lehecka apart on Saturday.

Against Lorenzo Musetti, on Thursday, the signature was the same: 6-4, 6-3, fourteen forehand winners and ten unforced errors across the whole match.

The workload, the only variable working for Fils

Jodar played the Washington final on Monday, due to rain, and took the court in Montreal on Wednesday. "It's not easy when you play the final on Monday and have to play on Wednesday," he said after getting past the second round against Corentin Moutet, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3. Then he added Musetti and Lehecka. Monday will be his fourth match in less than a week, hanging off a finalist's week in Washington.

Fils arrives with a shorter path and with the shot he hadn't found again since coming back. "The forehand is back," he said after the 6-2, 7-6(8) over Cameron Norrie, closed out on the sixth match point. That tiebreak says something else too: when the match tightens up, the Frenchman needs a lot of chances to close it out.

Slight edge to Jodar: the prior meeting on hard court, his form over the last few weeks and the shot that attacks precisely the ball Fils's plan produces most often all pull the same way. Two thresholds can flip it. If Fils stays above 70% first serves and keeps the average rally length within the third shot, it gets to tiebreaks and the match is open there; and if the Spaniard's legs show the bill from Washington in a possible third set, the pick falls apart with no other explanation needed. At stake, besides the semifinal, is the ranking: Jodar is world number 15, 359 points behind tenth place. To crack the top 10 he needs the Montreal final, and the final runs through here.