We know him, Munar!

The Spaniard can disappear and mess around a bit in the smaller tournaments, then magically find his motivation and level of play again in the big tournaments.

Not a lot of matches to get his teeth into for the Spaniard, who went to Gstaad and lost in the first round, but with a tricky draw. Which isn’t necessarily worrying, in my opinion. On the other hand, he then pulled out of the following tournaments and mentioned a setback, which can be understood as a small relapse. But it’s quite possible he didn’t really have the motivation and already wanted to fly off to the United States. Still, it’s a bit strange that he didn’t play Washington or another tournament afterwards. I’m a bit wary, even if he’s pulled this kind of thing several times already; I’m assuming he’ll be in shape tomorrow.

Hijikata hasn’t played that much either. He made his comeback in Los Cabos last week with a three-set loss to defending champion Shapovalov, who then went on to have a great tournament. It wasn’t a good draw for the Australian, but the content of the match was still quite worrying.

He had a great grass-court season despite a big disappointment at Wimbledon. He needs to kick-start a new dynamic and, in the end, his form on the day isn’t really better than Munar’s. We have two players who probably won’t be playing their best tennis tomorrow and who will be looking to reassure themselves. But it’s a great opportunity for this first round of a Masters 1000. Both will be very motivated. In terms of the match-up, I like Munar’s profile because he is just as resilient as Hijikata and serves a bit better. He has also added net play to his repertoire and remains a better player than the Australian most of the time.

Not an easy first round, but I still have a little idea…