The eternal underdog

Cobolli is constantly undervalued by the market; his odds are generally set too high

Despite his level and the consistency of his results, Cobolli keeps being the underdog as soon as there’s a good player in front of him. That was again the case against Khachanov and yet, when you watch the match, I just can’t tell myself Khacha was the favorite. Yes, there was that big 6–0 he took in the first set, but nothing serious, it was a stomach issue and it’s actually reassuring to see the Italian go on to grind out a five‑set win after that. His game isn’t really made for grass, but with the courts wearing out now and the bounce getting less and less low, I think he can play better and better in this tournament. I do need to keep an eye on physical and mental fatigue though, he seems much more tired and less on a mission than in Roland.

It’s the opposite situation for ADM, who isn’t playing excellent tennis but is very strong physically; he won’t crack on that front. Is it the same mentally? Not really, no. He’s constantly tense and you can see on his face that he’s trying to hold it in. For now he’s doing fine, he’s only lost one set, but the score against Svajda is still misleading, he gave up a bunch of chances. His strength right now is that he wins even when he’s playing badly; he’s still rock‑solid from the baseline and tricky to throw off on grass.

ADM leads the H2H 2–0, with a retirement and a very one‑sided win two years ago. Cobo has improved so much and gained so much experience since then that I can’t really rely on that too much. I’d say that a good ADM will make him crack and blow him up all over the place; you have to be ready to battle for a long time against him, and I’m not convinced that’s Cobolli’s current mindset. On the other hand, the Italian’s level is more than good enough to be a factor in this matchup, and I’ll remind you that at Roland, ADM completely collapsed under the pressure against a Mensik playing out of his mind (even though he was tired). In other words, I’m a bit afraid that Cobo will totally let go at some point in the match, but at no point is he supposed to be this big of an underdog.