Dimi!!!

A pleasure to see Dimitrov again after his brief stopover in Paris at the end of the year.

A win over Mpetshi and then a withdrawal, was that a big deal? Not really. Dimitrov admitted he mainly came to see how his body would respond and what he was missing to be at his best. He wanted to take the time to come back and potentially go all the way in every tournament he plays (in terms of injury, I mean), so we should see a bit fewer retirements from him. He was reassuring about his previous injury and seems ready to go all in again. Obviously, this is a tournament he loves, with no fewer than two titles, a final, and several semifinals! Fast courts, nice atmosphere, he enjoys it here and will still be hard to beat. Against Carreno he has a slight edge given the surface; he handles hard courts better than him. The Spaniard was a bit fortunate in qualifying, benefiting from Cazaux’s retirement in the second round, and he was close to losing to Bellucci in the first round. But here he is qualified; that’s also his strength, being resilient. He’s got a bit more match rhythm, but that’s about it. For the rest, he’s trailing in the H2H, and his only wins are on clay, definitely the surface where he has the best chance of beating Dimitrov. Here it’s an extremely fast hard court and a Dimitrov who should be fully recovered from his injury...