I really don’t know what to think of Lys in 2026

Eva Lys is one of those players everyone talks about in the future tense. The way she stays glued to the baseline, how she takes the ball early on both sides, how she beat Rybakina in Beijing in 2025 and smashed through the top‑40 ceiling. And then the knee, the surgery, the months without competition, the difficult comeback. In 2026, this is the reality: 1–3 on clay, 2–6 for the season overall, four consecutive losses before Rome. In Madrid, she didn’t convert any of her six break points against Zhang Shuai. In Stuttgart, the win over Badosa in three sets was real and promising, but then Svitolina crushed her 6–1 6–0. Her knee is holding up, she says she no longer has any pain, which is already good news. But her tennis on clay in 2026 has not yet returned to the level that used to strike fear into the very best on this surface.

Katie Boulter, for her part, has patiently built a relationship with the red clay that had been resisting her for years. The 29‑year‑old Briton, fiancée of Alex de Minaur and coached by Michael Joyce, has turned the 2026 clay season into a real testing ground. The 2026 numbers on clay are unambiguous: she holds 69.8% of her service games, saves 58.7% of her break points, and dominates on return under pressure in decisive situations. Her Attacking Baseliner profile, with a solid serve winning 65.2% of points behind her first ball, is gradually adapting to the slow Roman clay. She has never won in Rome, that’s the only drawback: two first‑round exits in 2024 and 2025. But she comes in with more weapons and more certainty on this surface than at any other point in her career.