Impossible is not French

A mountain rises up before little Gaston

Double title holder, the most feared player on tour along with Alcaraz, robotic style—there’s so much you can say about Sinner. If I were a player I’d rather face Alcaraz than Sinner; the Italian is even more serious and ruthless than anyone else, there isn’t a match he takes lightly and that’s also why he’s so good. I can listen to small arguments about Alcaraz’s opponents because the Spaniard drops games and gives away free points, but that’s not the case at all with Sinner; if he can win every single point, he will—he’s a machine. So I really don’t see how Gaston can do anything. He’ll try his little tricks, try to break up the rhythm, bring Sinner to the net and so on, but barring a disaster I don’t see how he can even win a set. His serve isn’t good, he’s not powerful, and across the net there’s basically a wall who plays five times faster than him and does everything better. It’ll be Sinner’s first match of the season, but even that isn’t a danger; last year he also started here and got pushed a bit, but that was against Jarry, who has a huge serve and could really hurt him, which isn’t the case with Gaston. I’m not going to drag this analysis out because I don’t see anything that would point to a tight match.