Where’d you go??

First time I’m seeing Van Assche again in ages—what did I miss?

Some solid Challenger tournaments, nothing incredible, but it looks like little by little Van Assche is managing to rebuild confidence as best he can before finally returning to the main tour to get results, right? That’s what we hope for him, but with his profile he really needs to be at his best physically, mentally, and tennis-wise to shine, since he lacks power and his serve doesn’t do much damage. His profile limits him, but he has already found solutions during certain stretches to play at a high level; he’ll have some good spells again, but some very rough ones too. The trend seems positive, he’s coming through qualies as well, so why not! He has a decent record in Metz, and that’s not surprising given his style of play—he’s got time and can turn into a wall with consistently smart tactics. Across the net is another Frenchman who can hit some serious purple patches before dipping just as quickly; indeed, Jacquet can put together big tournaments before losing to a lot of players. He just won a Challenger in Asia, and on his return to Europe he battled hard against Kovacevic but was tired. This week he’s a LL after a loss to Choinsky; we saw today the Brit can give plenty of players a hard time, so that loss isn’t alarming. In terms of the match-up, I give the edge to Van Assche, who thrives in that defender/counterpuncher role—he should be able to make Jacquet unravel—but I’m not writing Kyrian off either. He’s already played some big matches against this type of player and he’s playing well again right now, so we could be in for a great match!