Naughty Felix!

Félix Auger-Aliassime shaved his head and might be bringing a warrior mentality into this tournament.

I keep telling myself ever since his defeat at Roland-Garros, and the comments that followed, that we might see a strong reaction from Auger-Aliassime at this Wimbledon which, I think, should still be fairly open. The prideful bounce-back didn’t come right away. He didn’t manage to go very far in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Halle, but overall I felt his tennis was solid and that he was gaining momentum. I also don’t want to be too harsh on him, given that he lost to Majchrzak, who went on to win the title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, then he lost to Tiafoe after having match points, and the American also ended up winning the tournament. Maybe the draws just weren’t good, and this time he’s actually got a really good one.

Shevchenko really is a good draw. The Kazakh is not at all a grass-court guy. His game just isn’t suited for it. He likes to put a lot of volume and spin into his shots, which doesn’t work that well on this surface. I can’t be too harsh with him either, because I really like him. But it has to be said that there’s a real gap in level on this surface. He also played the Boodles Exhibition and lost to Rublev while taking a set, but then he lost in straight sets to Baez. The only thing that could make me believe in something from his side is that in big matches and big tournaments, he often plays better than usual. And that we’re never, I repeat never, completely safe from a bad Félix showing up in a first round.

I’m going to stick with my initial feeling, which is that we’ll see a good Auger-Aliassime at this tournament. Looking a bit more closely at his recent years at Wimbledon, you don’t see many deep runs. But the poor guy keeps running into horrible opponents to face, like Struff, Kokkinakis, Cressy, etc. Shevchenko is nowhere near as dangerous a player, especially in terms of his level and, above all, his playing style.