A familiar story?

Are we about to witness another "Dutch Classic"?

I think you know what I'm talking about. The one where either Griekspoor or Botic is getting increasingly frustrated as matches drag on while playing in the warm sun on clay ;) Anyway, I kind of like Botic's level lately, even if his results on paper don't look exactly mindblowing, eh? At least I feel like I'm seeing some fight from him... a good match against Kovacevic and then fighting back after a horrendous start against a very good Safiullin, in a tough matchup. While Botic can struggle in slower conditions, he can also be a pain to play. Against a player who is rather "average" (lacking either big weapons or extreme endurance/rally tolerance), VDZ tends to have no problems hanging around in the rallies with them and then making the difference with his own serving and power. I know he has the reputation of being more of a "giant slayer" who you want to take as an underdog, but he has good stats against this kind of player I just described as well! For me, Daniel falls in this category. I will admit that my viewing of his matches this year is a bit limited, due to the fact that he has mainly been grinding a lot of Challengers to get his ranking back up. He completely demolished Coria, who was not really up to speed, and then was a worthy winner against Sanchez Jover as well - although he did have a big dip in set two.

In the end, a lot of Daniel's wins lately have been against lower-ranked opponents, and while it is true that you can only beat whoever is in front of you, this is a big step up in quality (unless we get the Botic who woke up on the wrong side of the bed)...