Canadian friends

Canadian tennis is doing well at Indian Wells, with Shapo still in the running too, so things are going well for them

I might come off as the bad guy here but I just can’t get hyped about Diallo’s win over Rublev. I already said after the first round that he got through because his opponent was worse than him, and honestly Rublev was too today. The Russian completely lost it and was bothered by the slightly windy conditions, he was nowhere near his best level! Now, Diallo played his match and you have to applaud his exemplary attitude throughout as well as a serve that seems to be coming back, but I still maintain that his overall level is low. And we’ll see if I’m right or not as soon as tomorrow with a match against Felix Auger-Aliassime!

Big test for him, especially since he already took a little beating, 6–2 7–5, last year in Basel indoors. That’s FAA’s favorite surface, but the score was still pretty one-sided, especially for a server like Diallo. To be honest, apart from his serve I really don’t see what Diallo can do to bother Auger; we’ve had a great Felix for several months now and he’s absolutely not dropping his level. In his first round against Monfils he lost the first set, but you’ve got to applaud Gaël’s performance above all. I even think it was a great match from Auger in a tricky context, and he did everything right on his side, all systems are go. Normally that should be enough to secure a straightforward win over Diallo, who’ll also have had one less day of rest. You’re supposed to beat FAA the day after spending almost 3 hours beating Rublev? Not the best sequence in my opinion!