Marche trop haute ?

Safiullin is quite a player, one we’d kind of forgotten about lately. That ability to take the ball early on the return and that surgical forehand. He’s come through three tricky five-set matches (Kym, Rublev, VDZ) to show up here against the Brazilian star, who still hasn’t dropped a set.

First question: is Fonseca overrated here? 1.35, that’s okay, it’s still reasonable.

Can Fonseca absorb the Russian’s aggression? His power will really help him in any case. After that, it’ll depend on his level. In general, he’s the one dictating most of the time. And obviously Safiullin will do everything he can to prevent that because, when Fonseca is in control of the rally, Safiullin will have little chance. But we’ve also seen a Fonseca—against Sinner for example—defend and counter a bit better than expected. His movement quality is better than I thought, driven above all by a huge fighting spirit.

So in this battle for territory between a big hitter and a guy who takes your time away, we’ve got a Brazilian who, if he plays well (we’ve only seen that against two guys not on his level, and before Wim he wasn’t great on grass), could get the upper hand. And if on average he were to lose this battle for territory, he still has, in my view, underrated counter-punching weapons, whereas Safiu is more limited.

QED?