Sinner, necessarily?

Big favorite of this first quarter-final of Roland Garros, should we be wary of the Bulgarian in an edition of the tournament that is decidedly unlike any other?

It's strange, because we got into the habit of saying that Grigor Dimitrov was often very dominant against players "within his reach", but also very dominated by those who were a cut above or whose playing profile suited him. is complicated. In any case, this is what happened to him during the 2023, 2022 and 2020 editions, here at Roland Garros. Now, our job is precisely not to establish a general truth and to go into detail. Tennis is above all a mental sport. And Grigor gave us further proof against Hubert Hurkacz. It has now been 6 direct confrontations with the Pole where Grigor wins most of the important points and wins the match by a thread. But strangely, when he plays against Zverev, it's the German who wins most of the key moments. What about Jannik Sinner? Mentally, the Italian once again proved against Corentin Moutet that he was the best mentally in men's tennis. When we look a little closer at the past confrontations between the two men in this first quarter, we already notice that Grigor's only victory dates back to May 2020 and that Jannik Sinner was then ranked 73rd in the world. All their other meetings were played on hard courts with the last one in Miami this year which hurt: huge handjob from the rital! Will it be different today? Their first 4 matches gave us few clues I think, because none were real tests. As benchmarks, we therefore have their match up which is favorable to Sinner, as well as their current form. On this last point, the Italian arrives with limited preparation with his hip injury, but looks good physically. Not too worrying when we see Grigor's season on earth which was just "ok". For me therefore, there is nothing to suggest that the best player in the world for 10 months will be trapped in one of the 4 most important tournaments of the year. His aggressive and relentless style of play has already often broken the Bulgarian's weapons, notably by depriving him of time to organize himself. Now let's see what the bookmakers have come up with!