Roland’s magic as a last hope

How hard it is for Muller right now, the Frenchman is completely out of it and dragging Tsitsipas down.

Muller is currently on a 5‑match losing streak and you can't really say it was against top players; among them you've got Butvilas, Struff, VDZ, Wu, Sakamoto... What's worrying is the straight‑set score every time, and it looks like physically he only has enough gas for about an hour before completely collapsing. It would take a real miracle at Roland just to see him find his tennis again, and then hold up physically in such a demanding format for him with his illness. You can't even say that he often plays well at Roland, because that's not the case; his record there is weak.

So yes, if Muller’s current form is worrying, is Tsitsipas’s just as worrying? Not really... The Greek is going through a rough patch even on clay, but his losses have nothing to do with Muller’s: we’re talking about Tien/Machac/Ruud/Marozsan/Cerundolo. All really tricky guys to face. There was a time when Stefanos was supposed to beat them, but I don’t think it’s terrible to lose to those players; I’ll grant you the level of play is pretty average, but it’s not on Muller’s level. The Greek is back at Roland as well, and here you really can rely on a huge body of past results. Last year he lost to Gigante, and of course he’ll become more and more beatable. We were talking about a red‑hot Gigante coming out of the qualifiers.

The match‑up is nice for Tsitsipas, who can dictate play and won’t be put under too much pressure, especially on this Roland clay. I don’t like what he’s producing and I do think he’s worse than before, but in my opinion he’s drawn one of the best possible matches.