The good old days are long gone...

There was a time when this matchup was a Grand Slam final. But we’re a long way from that now.

It's normal to see Djokovic drop in level and lack solid results, given that he's getting older and nearing the end of his career. On the other hand, seeing Tsitsipas this low in terms of ranking, results, level, and especially tennis is much more worrying and sad for a player who has now also decided to definitively part ways with his father as coach. Such a particular relationship that surely did him more harm than good, but let's hope it's really over.

My first instinct regarding this news is that it could do him a lot of good and that he also wants to prove to himself and to him that he can get better results without him. Maybe this is the beginning of a new chapter for Stefanos, who will seriously have to climb back up the rankings. The Greek is coming off a straightforward first round against Gaston, but without any real resistance. I don't want to get too carried away with this win. I'd rather keep in mind that last week in Mallorca, he lost quite heavily to Buse in a match where we saw that, with someone complete on the other side and who has a more next-gen style of play, the Greek looked a bit lost.

That said, it's a match that doesn’t really carry any genuine stakes for him, strictly speaking. Logically, he should lose to Djokovic on grass. I tell myself he’s going to play with a lot of freedom, and that he still has enough fighting spirit and desire to enjoy himself on court to really make the most of the moment and bring out his best tennis.

Even if Djokovic is aging, logically he should still win fairly comfortably on a surface he masters perfectly and where he has more weapons than the Greek. For his opening match, Novak Djokovic still lost a set to Wu. But I wasn’t all that worried about his level. There was simply a monstrous Chinese player from the second and third sets onward. And that’s not all that surprising. He’s a player who can take big scalps and dictate play with insanely aggressive tennis when everything is clicking, and that’s what happened. He finished with over 50 winners. It was a dangerous profile for Djokovic, and that was confirmed. Is Stefanos that kind of threat too? I’m much less convinced.

The head-to-head clearly favors Djokovic, who leads 12–2 and hasn’t lost to him in many years. Meanwhile, Stefanos has dropped in level and seems worse than before. It’s surprising to say it, but it’s the plain truth. Maybe on a perfect day and with nothing to lose, Stefanos could manage to take a set and plant a seed of doubt in Djokovic’s mind, but personally, I see a fairly comfortable win for the Serb.