A beatable Félix?

The Canadian hasn’t managed to get his head straight again after his setback at Roland Garros. He went out fairly early in ’s-Hertogenbosch. But maybe this tournament can get him going again.

I was pretty on the fence after the Canadian’s win over Fucsovics in ’s-Hertogenbosch because his opponent was clearly diminished, and on top of that, Félix’s match wasn’t anything special. That feeling was confirmed with his loss to Majchrzak in a disastrous match, where he went down quite heavily, but above all, logically. You can put it down to the tricky management of the surface change, and also the fact that this tournament in ’s-Hertogenbosch was super slow in terms of play and didn’t suit his style. Now we’re moving on to much faster grass, which has often worked well for him. His results here are more than decent, he’s already reached the semi-finals, and generally he only loses to good players. That’s no surprise given the quality of his serve and the game we know he can produce on this surface. He should build up form heading into Wimbledon, but we’re still coming off a bad match.

On Borges’s side, the Portuguese player is also coming off a disappointment after his loss to Cilic in a match he dominated for a long stretch, even having two match points and leading 5–2 with a double mini-break in the tie-break of the second set. He’s a player who can shine thanks to his mentality and his ability to come back, but he doesn’t handle the big moments well and I found him rather timid on his chances, unfortunately. Yet in ’s-Hertogenbosch it was a really cool tournament for him, and his level was good all week. There was just that little slip-up against Cilic, but it doesn’t call everything into question.

I’m conflicted about this match because I think Borges absolutely has the level to trouble Auger-Aliassime, but I’m not a fan of the match-up for him. He likes having time and slower conditions, but in Halle he’ll probably face thunder on Auger-Aliassime’s service games and get heavily attacked if he plays a bit too neutral. On the other hand, he could also take advantage of the speed of this surface to hurt Félix badly with his flat shots. This one is really not easy to read.