R1 in troubled waters

El tiburon has struck again! (Comesana’s nickname, which means “the shark” in Spanish). And I understand more and more why they call him that...

The Argentine is quite an athlete. He’s lean and packed with explosiveness. Despite his small size, his body uncoils like a spring, and his arm speed is impressive. In qualifying, he took out Luca Van Assche, who played him quite poorly tactically, only changing his return position at the very end of the match and playing far too little to the backhand. Then David Goffin, who started his match tense because there was a lot at stake for him, only to finish it fairly quickly with an obvious injury. El Tiburon serves very well. Along with his forehand, it’s one of his biggest weapons. On first serve, he manages to be quite powerful as I said, and he found plenty of spots. On second serve, he’s very aggressive. In rallies, everything is set up so that, at some point, he can unload an attacking forehand and do damage (backhand slice quite good, down-the-line patterns, etc.). In return, you get a slightly weaker backhand and a guy who sometimes lacks consistency and the ability to “tighten up his game.” Doesn’t that remind you of someone? Félix, of course! And yes, it’s very similar. Félix is more powerful, even more physical, and uses the slice less to create chances to unleash his forehand, but I think these are two fairly mirror-image games, with Félix of course capable of playing his at a top-10, even top-5 level indoors. But where is our Canadian at right now? He retired against Munar in Basel due to a left knee injury. He was coming off a very clean win in Brussels and was playing his 7th match in a row. Impressive, yes, but the guy still played 8 tiebreaks in 6 matches. And not really knowing what shape he’ll be in (if he’s somewhat compelled to play this Masters 1000 to collect the year-end bonus, for example), I think I’ve got an interesting bet with this stat...