Is Bonzi starving?

Ah, the Frenchman is back in a big hard-court tournament, and that alone interests me. We were left a bit unsatisfied with Bonz, because with his coach Nicolas Mahut, and especially after his breakthrough in the Bois-le-Duc tournament, I thought—at least personally—that he was going to do something better on grass. But his retirement at Wimbledon in the fifth set due to an injury, I don’t remember the exact details, must have forced him to take almost a month off to sort all that out. I like the fact that he’s playing the Vancouver Challenger before coming back here in Montreal. He’s going through qualifying and I think we have a Paire who, from a distance, without having seen him play, seems ready to compete again at a very decent level— the level we know he has when he’s aggressive and at the same time mobile, with solid ball control. It’s that latter point that interests me against the German, because I’ll tell you something: I personally haven’t been very convinced by the German’s recent performances. Yes, I know he has a few good wins, but mentally I find him quite fragile, for the level people claim he has. I feel like his performances tend to come in conditions that are comfortable for him. Here, we’re dealing with a ball that’s a bit harder to control, with conditions that may be less favorable for him: a hard court that’s a bit slower than clay at altitude, a bit less lively, and in my view his shots will have a bit less impact. And when he’s in conditions like that, I think his level really drops; he’s not worth his ranking of 45 in the world—he’s not a 200 either, of course—but it dips a bit, especially against a French player who isn’t worth his 101 ATP ranking on outdoor hard courts, which for me, in the golden years of hard, is obviously his best surface. So that’s the gist of my thinking: a potentially favorable match-up for the Frenchman, and on the German side, a level of tennis that’s not as good as many people seem to think.