The submarine

Tirante reaches the quarter-finals without having shown too much, he’s flying under the radar

Victory against an uninspired Garin and then a retirement against Cerundolo, you can’t really say that Tirante is coming in with big wins. But that’s exactly where you have to be careful: his wins are actually pretty good despite the circumstances, and against Cerundolo he played a very high-level first set. He’s got an excellent serve (a first serve at 231 km/h against Cerundolo) and plays aggressive tennis, he’s constantly improving and I also really like what he says in press conferences. I’m sure he’s going to play a huge match and cause problems for Tabilo.

The Chilean already lost to him last year, and quite heavily too, so I can tell you he’s going to be wary. He’s also coming in with a slightly odd run: he beat a completely awful Nava and then got through a trap against Passaro, who finished injured. Credit to Tabilo for getting through it, he’s winning more and more and showing a good level of play, nothing to complain about. A great match-up in store, I imagine it’ll be pretty tight given the serving quality on both sides.