Nothing urgent?

Khacha really isn’t having a good start to the year, yet he seems okay with the situation.

Philosophical after his defeat in the first round in Monte Carlo, he says he’s working well but that it’s frustrating not to get the results to show for it, without actually being angry. He says every match is a new chance to get going again; I feel he’s in a good place mentally despite the results. For a player of his caliber there are a few worrying losses, but I think he doesn’t often lose to bad players; every time he runs into guys who are in form / annoying to play. That’ll be the case again against Carabelli unfortunately, so watch out for Khacha.

Carabelli is very hard to read, he’s always got a little injury or a motivation issue sometimes, but when everything clicks he’s such a strong clay-court player that in my opinion he has the tools to beat Khacha. On the other hand, he’s coming off a tournament in Marrakech where the level wasn’t phenomenal, three laborious wins and a forearm issue as well. A full week of rest and he’ll be ready to battle hard in Barcelona? Not sure with him, every tournament is different and you really have to get a feel for him in the present moment.

I like the match-up for Khacha because it’ll be a real baseline battle; against Rinderknech he got caught out by the Frenchman’s serving/attacking quality. Barcelona is slow and his track record there is interesting, including a semi last year, and he’s really appreciated there as well.