The choice between stability or potential?

Shang is coming back and may not yet be at his best level, which could push you to bet on Vallejo, who we at least know is already established.

Vallejo is a good clay-courter, solid on both wings, hardworking, a grafter, who can offer guarantees because his level of play varies very little. He’s a stable guy. But lately, he’s more on a downward slope, with very few good results. It’s clear that this is a change from the start of his year, when he was winning Challengers and playing with huge confidence. On the ATP Tour, he has to fight and is racking up far fewer wins.

We have no guarantees about his level on hard courts, since he’s not naturally a player for this surface. He’s already struggling on clay at the moment, and now he’s discovering hard. We don’t really know what his potential is, but with his very loopy shots, you can say that naturally he’s not built to be effective on it. In any case, less than on clay, that’s obvious.

Shang is an excellent hard-court player, he has obvious qualities to perform on this surface and we know what he’s capable of. He made his return to competition last week and even if he didn’t get a single break point in the match, I found his match decent. What I mainly felt was that Nishikori was excellent against him, with exactly the type of game to hurt him, namely playing fully in rhythm and tempo, taking the ball early, which really bothered Shang. There was an MTO for the Chinese for a knee issue, but I didn’t find him affected at all. I mainly have the impression it was the start of a cramp that he wanted to treat at all costs before it became serious. He’s prone to cramps.

Clear surface advantage for the Chinese player, but he’s in a comeback phase and will probably be the first to crack if the match drags on. Vallejo’s game shouldn’t bother him too much, unlike Nishikori’s, and the conditions in Montreal are quite fast this year, which suits him even more. I like his level and historically, he has already shown that he can make good comebacks after injuries. His loss to Nishikori doesn’t discourage me, quite the opposite.