The heart will make up for the rest

Sonego isn’t arriving at the peak of his form for this tournament, but he can count on his home crowd to help him

Since his return, Sonego has won one match and lost three. His only win was against Martinez while cramping, and the Spaniard basically handed him the match. He’s just lost three in a row and still seems very far from his best version, both in his game and physically. I’m really not optimistic for him this week because this Rome clay is slow and doesn’t play to his advantage; he prefers when he can easily make his serve/forehand combo work. His record in Rome is honestly not as great as I imagined, he made a semi in 2021 but the rest is very disappointing, I’d say. We know that with his home crowd fired up and his impeccable mentality he’s capable of pulling off upsets, but it doesn’t seem that obvious this time.

His first-round opponent will be Buse. The Peruvian keeps rising, but he just played a no-show match against Tabilo in Aix because of an illness (MTO in the first set then 6/0 in the second), he seems to be constantly bothered by little injuries but at each tournament it still doesn’t stop him from winning matches. I’m still a bit worried though, because if he has to battle against himself on top of being at war with the crowd and a fired-up Sonego, I think it’ll be too hard.

I really don’t have a good feeling about him right now, but I couldn’t really explain why, even though he’s a player I love / that I back a lot. I really feel like he’s not going to like the conditions much and won’t manage to swing the match in his favor.