Stratospheric level

Whether it's Navone or Halys, they both have just produced a perfect, or near-perfect, match in the round of 16. If they show up with the same level tomorrow, we're in for a big clash.

Halys did everything better than Vacherot today, especially on serve, but also from the baseline. He says he might have played his best match of the year. That shows just how perfect his performance was. He’s getting his form back after a few really average and sluggish weeks, and you can feel that high-altitude clay really suits him. If he can reproduce the same performance tomorrow, he’s got a real shot. But careful, because the profile on the other side of the net will be completely different. Vacherot is relatively limited when his first serve doesn’t do damage, which was the case today. But Navone is pretty much the exact opposite. He doesn’t care about getting free points on his first serve. Or on his serve in general, really. Halys will have to play a completely different match tomorrow. But there’s no doubt he’ll put up a real fight.

We’re dealing with a particularly good Navone this week. His first-round win against Muller didn’t necessarily mean much, but this time, he made a huge statement by destroying Struff. There was even a moment when I thought it could end 6–0, 6–0, but he had a tiny dip in intensity before tightening the screws again to close out the match, his level was just perfect. He’s excellent in this kind of matchup where he has to return big servers and make them play from the baseline. I thought Struff had the necessary power as well as the net game to hurt him enough on a fast surface, but in the end, not at all. Navone was almost never in trouble, and my god, does he return well! The Argentine had already given me that impression against Auger in Rome, where you feel that against guys like that who rely heavily on the quality of their serve, he can totally neutralize that and play at his own pace. This is an Argentine who’s made a much better impression on me than in previous weeks. And if I have to compare, he’s the one I see as stronger tomorrow.

They’ve only played once, a match that Navone won quite comfortably last year in Aix-en-Provence. I get that we’re not at all on the same kind of clay here; it’s much faster and in Halys’ favor. I also have to admit that Halys is less dependent on his serve quality than Struff, because he knows how to hold his own from the baseline and is less in that constant rush to come forward, which is the case for Struff.