A bit early for Mumu?

The Frenchman has an excellent record in this tournament but he’s coming back from injury, hard to gauge.

For his return to competition, Muller lost in Miami to Berrettini, and quite soundly, but nothing to worry about, especially since the Italian is really playing well again at the moment. Then Muller went to Naples where he narrowly beat two players I don’t know, so I’m a bit mixed: those hard-fought wins don’t really reassure me about his current level, but I still think it’s good that he chained together two long clay-court matches and came out with wins. After that he loses 2 and 2 to Medjedovic, but the Serb goes on to win the tournament so that’s fine. The key is figuring out whether Muller is already in enough rhythm and fully fit physically to allow him to start playing well again right away. We can already say that in Marrakech he’s almost like at home since he loves this tournament, it’s a good setting to see him play well again. I also think his first-round opponent is really not a scary player at all; Muller could beat him without even being back to his best yet.

And yes, I am indeed talking about Cina. The Italian has had quite a lot of hype around him for two years now, but I have to admit that every time I watch his matches, I’m not that impressed. He’s super clean technically, able to play in rhythm with above-average shot quality, but it’s still pretty thin and he doesn’t seem to have made that famous step up yet. He won a Challenger this year, but the level was really low; for me he hasn’t beaten any player at Muller’s level, and I get the feeling he might actually play better on hard than on clay.

The question lies on Muller’s side, because for me, if the Frenchman is fit enough, he is better.