Always playing at home

Could we see Fonseca go on a run, with Sinner and Alcaraz out...?

Well, it's been a bit quiet from Fonseca lately, right? In a way, we are kind of getting used to this pattern, especially since he is quite selective in which tournaments he plays. Overall, it was a pretty disappointing clay season for him; even reaching the QF in Roland Garros and beating Djokovic was a highlight. He was not really able to accomplish anything on grass either... and has only played the UTS event since! Last year, he had no success in Toronto, losing to Schoolkate in straight-sets! Now, he is dealt a quite challenging first round, playing against Tsitsipas, who is starting to build some confidence, especially after grabbing a hard-fought title in Gstaad (played 4x three-setters). Stefanos has already warmed up here, with two wins. His match against Damm yesterday was pretty decent; he managed to do a lot of damage on return in a matchup that could have gotten tricky with big lefty hits into his backhand. My main concern for him was that he was not all too far away from blowing a double-break lead in the second set. For once, Tsitsipas was the one who was really able to pick on his opponent's backhand, forcing a lot of errors from that wing. Something else he did really well was to exploit Damm's movement and keep a good amount of depth on his balls, never really letting Damm get good opportunities to play aggressively within the baseline.

While Tsitsipas's performances are starting to stabilize, it's a bit harder to expect what we are getting from the Brazilian, who obviously has a huge peak but is also no stranger to throwing in some rather mediocre performances. Fonseca's intensity and aggressiveness should present issues for Tsitsipas, and I think the crowd could become a factor as well. We have seen how Tsitsipas can spiral a bit out of control when he is facing the young talents and let it affect him negatively; against Fils last year is an example... and trying to hit Alcaraz ;) However, we have seen over and over again that conditions here are not easy, so Fonseca might not be able to afford to start too slow...