You’ve got to wake up, Fran’!

The Argentinian won Queen’s before disappearing again, he’s impossible to keep track of, that one...

I already felt like his win at Queen’s was a bit of a smash-and-grab, because all week he was walking a tightrope and not playing his best tennis, and in the end that’s been confirmed with poor performances since then. It was really a disaster in Los Cabos, even in his first round he can count himself lucky his opponent retired. Then against Gea he had big chances before completely fading away; once his brain switches off it’s over, and right now he doesn’t really look like he wants it much. That said, he’s already had big hard-court runs in this part of the world, so maybe he’ll pull himself together, but I’m mainly waiting to see him in Cincinnati, which might suit him better. I’m not sure Montreal really excites him.

It’s a totally different question for Michelsen, who is just absolutely on fire right now! The American has shone at Challenger level, and last week he came very close to knocking out Fritz, missing a match point — that’s hugely positive, he’s playing his best tennis again and coming in full of confidence. Sure, he dropped a set against Struff in his first round, but that was a bit of a smash-and-grab from Struff: the German capitalized on a single chance to take his set, but overall it was another convincing match from Michelsen.

We’ve got two previous meetings to chew over to prepare this match, 1–1, but the most recent one is a bit skewed because Michelsen was completely spent after a full week in Kazakhstan. The momentum is totally different now: Michelsen is excelling at the moment and Cerundolo is worrying, current form suggests Michelsen should come through. The match-up looks balanced to me: Michelsen is devilishly solid, and Cerundolo worries me with his high number of unforced errors when he doesn’t put in the effort.