The rest won’t be easy.

Cobolli will have to get things going again after his run at Roland Garros. It’s good for his confidence, but he’s spent a lot of energy over these two weeks. And now he has to switch to grass.

I’m not really convinced by Cobolli’s early rounds in general. He’s the kind of player you want to see play at least once to get a feel for his mindset and how he’s playing that week. By default, I’m cautious with him, and here we’ll need to be even more careful given that he hasn’t played since his final at Roland Garros. It’s not an easy situation to manage, and that famous transition to grass will have to be a quick one.

Last year, he reached the quarterfinals at this tournament by winning twice in a deciding tie-break. Then he had a great run at Wimbledon, but he also benefited from an open draw up to the quarterfinals, only really beating Mensik as a top player. I don’t want to criticize him, but I feel like his early results on grass need to be put into context rather than overhyped. He’s a player who likes it when the bounce is high and the pace is fast. As for the pace, he’ll be well served. But for the high bounce, that’s less obvious. I also have a question mark over his movement, since that’s an important part of his game.

He’s facing his buddy Tiafoe again, whom he’s already come across several times this season, and the matches are always very different. They vary depending on the momentum one or the other has. Even if we instinctively think Cobolli is better because of his performance at Roland Garros, I think Tiafoe has the edge on grass given that he’s already played in Stuttgart and that he was actually pretty decent there. The only issue I have with Tiafoe on this surface is his poor return quality, but Cobolli is not an incredible server, and as I said, his kick serve will be much less effective. For me, Tiafoe’s game has too big an advantage on this surface.