What’ve you got in store for us, Z?!

Between the depression, I’ve got no one to talk to, I’m exhausted, and I had to get injections for back pain... We can’t take this guy anymore!

And of course, in between his statements he brings up his memory of beating Federer here, and the fact he’s already made a semi and a final in Shanghai. So, what should we take away? That Z is lost. For me, he’s got an oversized ego, which keeps him from improving, surrounding himself with the right people, listening, etc. His problems are structural, and his average level is enough to beat 80% of players. Although… sometimes he’s really a letdown. Against big, solid baseliners who aren’t huge attackers—guys like Khachanov, Fritz, Muller, Djoko, Musetti… he’d lose today. Valentin Royer plays a slightly riskier brand of tennis. He steps into the ball, goes after it… and the error rate comes with it. That’s the kind of game Z likes, obviously. But he’s in such bad form this year that he’s losing to guys like Rinderknech, Cerundolo, Griekspoor, Félix, Sinner (kidding about the last one). The only thing is, Val hasn’t played as well as he did in Hangzhou. He even really struggled against, granted, a dangerous Navone, but there were still some kind of unusual errors. That said, the guy’s gonna be super fired up. People keep talking about that benchmark match against Khachanov with Marcos, then his win over Rublev two weeks ago. He’s gonna show up with zero fear and go straight at the German. What happens next? We’ll see…