Is the hardest part over?

Whether it’s for Zhang or for Brooksby, I get the feeling they were eagerly waiting for the end of this clay-court season and the start of a much more enticing end of the season for both of them.

We’ve got two guys really struggling this year. Zhang has 13 wins this season, but 5 of them came at some obscure hard‑court Challenger. The rest of his wins are really against very weak opponents. Every time I see him play, I feel like he’s good for a while in the match and then suddenly collapses for no reason I can understand and basically cruises to the finish. I saw him on grass at a Challenger this week against Virtanen. He was up against a player who wasn’t very inspired and was a bit tight at the start of the match. He handled the first set really badly when he should have won it. After that, he fell apart again and lost by a clear scoreline. His mentality really worries me right now and his grass‑court game isn’t great. He still has a big serve and very strong flat shots that can work on a really good day. But it’s still very laboured and it’s not natural for him to play on this surface.

On Brooksby’s side, we’ve got a guy who’s even more lacking in confidence, with only 4 wins this season, which is really very poor given his tennis potential. For him, I think it was physical: we saw him completely burnt out at the end of the hard‑court swing earlier in the year. He hasn’t managed to turn things around, even if I have to give him credit for a few decent matches, despite the lack of wins. I kind of want to compare his clay season to Mannarino’s; I didn’t think it was disastrous, but his game really isn’t made for that surface and it’s too hard for him to fully express his tennis. This return to grass will do him good: he’s a very clever, very intelligent player, and much more natural than Zhang on this surface.

The only small advantage Zhang currently has is that he already has three matches on grass, and we know that can make a difference, since this surface is so hard to get used to. Brooksby might take a bit of time to get into the match, but for me, once he’s settled, he’s simply better than Zhang. I’d add that Hertogenbosch is a rather slow grass, which in my opinion doesn’t work in Zhang’s favour. I prefer him on very fast courts where he can catch his opponents off guard. Here, I think that apart from his serve, he’s going to get dragged into a very special rhythm, the kind only Brooksby has the secret to.