Donskoy Evgeny - Kukushkin Mikhail

Game Preview : Second round at Us Open, all players are glad to reach this round at least. What players get? 86,000 $ and 45 ranking point's, it is a very solid prize for just reaching this round. In this match we have a two lucky players, Evgeny Donskoy reached second round because his opponet retire from the match, Mikhail Kukushkin won against David Ferrer who was very out of shape, he wasn't ready for this event.

Let's talk about players :

Mikhail Kukushkin (103) - Player from Kazakhstan, who is very good player, very talented, but unfortunately not lucky at all. He can player really well on court, but his health always on question, one match he can be very healthy and on the other match he will be injured. Mikhail is Tall player, with solid serve, good thinking and motivation, at best shape he can compete with elite players, but often he is not healthy enough for it. 18/11 this season record on hard court, few good challenger events and some good ATP level tournament and he still near Top100, maybe he will comeback to the TOP100 soon. Last year he played in first round here and lost.

Evgeny Donskoy - Russian player, who is balancing on the line called TOP100... Some weeks he is out of top100, some weeks he is in again. Evgeny is good player, he even managed to win against Roger Federer... But he can keep his game on top, when he reached TOP65, everyone was thinking he will be in top50 soon, maybe top30, but then something went wrong. Russian started to loose a lot, play bad, but after few weeks we saw him play good again and then again bad. Evgeny can play very good, he is fast, he have a great serve , strongs shots. This year record on hard 23/6, very solid numbers.

Comparing players : Well, both players are simillar in a lot of situations. They both can serve good, they like to hit strongs shots, but maybe Evgeny is more defensive style palyer and Kukushkin likes to hit very hard, he is more attacking style player.

What to expect today? : We think Evgeny is in bad shape again, maybe his win in first round will help him a little, but in the end Mikhail must win with his attacking and fast tennis style.

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