Mr. Paul

The American has gotten married. Even if he maybe hasn’t had the racket in his hand as much as usual, we’ve seen in the past that this often benefits players, because they show up with a bit of distance and a lighter mindset, which could help him.

Historically, this has been a fairly average tournament for Paul, who’s never been particularly successful here. I couldn’t really say why. Maybe he puts a bit of pressure on himself at home and needs to kick off his US season before building up momentum, which we’ve already seen with other American players. But that’s about all I can see. Otherwise, for the rest, it seems like conditions where he could perform well.

He’s coming off a bit of a disappointment at Wimbledon where he simply didn’t have enough juice in his legs. That’s also something he sometimes struggles with. And all of a sudden, his whole game takes a huge hit. This time, he’s had a good rest. He hasn’t played since. It’s a first round. Logically, it should hold up, unless he really went all out during his wedding.

It’s a first round that could turn out to be tricky because he’s playing the feared Majchrzak, who’s always hard to deal with. The Pole is intelligent, plays a rather unusual style and knows how to adapt his game. He’s not really the kind of player you want to face, especially in a first round. He doesn’t really have any reference results in this tournament, but that doesn’t worry me, he can play on all surfaces and loves big battles. I think he has all the qualities to bother a Paul who’s just getting started again, but he could also lose and tighten up at the end of potential sets. Logically, you’d expect him to put up a big fight, but for Paul to come out on top.