The ATP Tour opens its Chinese swing on Wednesday and Jia Hu faces Vit Kopriva in the Chengdu first round, a first career meeting between the two.
Hu is the home entrant and the less experienced of the pair at this level. Chengdu's 28-player draw gives the top four seeds byes, which means these opening matches are contested almost entirely by players fighting for a round-of-16 place they cannot afford to give up with Beijing and Tokyo starting September 30.
Kopriva is the more proven tour-level operator. The Czech has built his ranking on clay but his hard-court results have improved, and his game translates better to an outdoor hard court than the surface split suggests. He hits a heavy ball from the back, moves well laterally, and does not beat himself in the way lower-ranked opponents often do against him.
Hu's route is the crowd and the conditions. Chengdu plays reasonably quick in the afternoon heat, and a Chinese wildcard with nothing to lose against a seeded-adjacent opponent is a live proposition for a set.
Kopriva in two, with the first set the one to watch.