Guess who's back ?

Fuck, every time he comes back, I feel like getting all fired up lol. Don’t you?

Well, I saw him a bit in practice against Terence Atmane, and I saw him get a little frustrated. I only watched 10 minutes, so it’s not enough to draw any conclusions. He tried a couple of slightly daring shots, and then I left. He’s often said that his tennis isn’t necessarily there yet before a tournament. And on clay, we’re always a bit afraid he’ll have to grind a bit too much. But here, he’s playing Tallon Griekspoor, who just sprayed the ball all over the place again, and we like the match-up against that kind of guy because Gaël will be in a position to counter smartly. On the negative side, though, Griekspoor plays fast and Gaël also needs time. But Tallon won’t be able to play as fast in Monte Carlo, believe me. I saw Bonzi really struggle on the clay in Monaco. If we look at Tallon’s wins on clay last year, we might be a bit surprised by that positive record (14/9), but I think he got quite a few favorable draws, playing a lot of guys who aren’t really clay-courters. And this year, we can’t really say the Dutchman’s tennis is shining in every tournament. You can feel he’s kind of burned out, and his consistency has really taken a hit. Nevertheless, I think Monte Carlo is one of the clay tournaments that suits him best because the clay there is pretty compact (meaning not very slippery). For the movement of a hard-court player, that’s actually pretty nice, in my opinion.