The two big nutcases on the tour.

If the level of tennis is interesting, we’ll also have to keep an eye on them mentally, on both sides.

I'll start with Rublev, who scared me a bit at the beginning of his match against Kekmanovic before imposing himself in dominant fashion. The Russian says he feels very good on clay and, over time, he feels that we’re seeing the best version of him on this surface because he has time to set up his game and hit hard while still being present in the rest of the game, on return or in slightly more defensive phases. We know he’s capable of going very deep every week once he gets going, and his first round as well as his recent tournaments, with Barcelona foremost, suggest that we’ll see a good version of the Russian this week.

For Fokina, we’re still looking at a comeback tournament. I really felt that in his first round against Garin on several levels, especially physically, even though he’s normally a particularly strong player in that area.

His quality of play hasn’t disappeared, far from it, but I felt he wanted to play very aggressively to avoid as many long rallies as possible quickly after the first set. I wouldn’t say it’s a bit of a smash-and-grab win that he takes that second set, because he really was better than Garin, but it was hanging by a thread and I have the impression that it would have taken almost nothing for it to swing definitively the other way. That’s just how I felt. In any case, I don’t see a Fokina who’s back to his best yet, and I wonder if this isn’t already his limit for now, given that he still needs to get more rhythm back.

To talk a bit about the match-up, I obviously have to mention the head-to-head, which is 6–1 for Rublev, which might sound incredible. But there are a lot of wins with tiebreaks or in three sets. It’s not a one-way match-up. I do think Rublev enjoys this kind of match-up because he holds up very well from the baseline and there’s a lot of pace coming from the other side. Conversely, I think Foki doesn’t like it when someone matches his power and the ball comes back a bit too often with really high intensity.