Is Struffy pulling out his special move?

The German can play a high-level match and follow it up with a very bad one. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen him perform well, then put in a complete no-show the next day.

Nice win for Struff over Landaluce with good composure, especially at the end of the match. He played pretty well overall, but had a big dip in the second set before recovering nicely. It’s a bit of a recurring pattern in his matches lately, I feel. He starts strong, then drops off, and in the end it can either still go his way or fall apart. This time, it went his way. We once again saw that with his ultra-aggressive tennis, he’s capable of taking the racket right out of his opponents’ hands and being the one who decides the outcome of the match, or almost.

A much more comfortable win for Borges in the first round against Mannarino in a relatively enjoyable match-up and against a Frenchman who was far less inspired than in previous weeks. This confirms what I think about Borges: he’s in very good form and very dangerous on this surface. However, watch out, because it’s really fast this week, and he’ll be facing a match-up he hates, against Struff. We love seeing Borges control the game or counterpunch from the baseline, but without having to defend constantly. However, as soon as things start going a bit too fast and he’s put under heavy pressure, his record is really not good. For me, tomorrow’s match falls into that category, and I’m extremely wary.

Aside from the match-up, which I’m a bit worried about, I’m definitely on Team Borges for this one. For me, there’s a clear gap in level at the moment. Even though Struff is capable of anything, it’s always tricky to trust him.