The most disrespected top 10 on the tour.

It’s crazy how some players like Cobolli are really not liked by the market in general. Whereas on paper, a guy who’s top 10 is supposed to be above most of his opponents, but he always has interesting odds.

After two disastrous matches in a row, Cobolli found his way back to victory against Kecmanovic, but it was tough in many respects. For about a set and a half, the Italian played at the level of his top-10 ranking with perfect tennis before the rain interruption, which completely threw him off. He came back on court and played erratically, piling up double faults and making errors without Kecmanovic needing to do much. The Serb simply noticed that Cobolli was losing his footing and just started putting the ball back in play. It could have worked for him; he even got the break in the third set, but lost it immediately, and Cobolli finished in a more solid way. On the other hand, the Italian again showed attitude problems towards his team. You can feel that as soon as he starts losing, he gets frustrated and tries to hit even harder, which is rarely the solution..

He’s going to face an opponent who already beat him earlier this year in Monte Carlo, and quite convincingly. Blockx was playing like steel during that period and was almost coming in better on paper than Cobolli. He played his match perfectly with a strategy that evolved depending on the points. Sometimes he just let Cobolli make the errors, and then from time to time, he was the one dictating play and attacking intelligently. That’s what makes him strong. I feel like he’s capable of everything. He’s a complete player who’s improving well, and I find that physically he’s starting to become a real beast. On top of that, he’s put on muscle. Sure, most of his recent matches weren’t very high quality, but he should ramp up. And once the machine gets going again, he’ll go back to hitting very big. His first-round match was good; it’s a good way to regain confidence, especially since Navone was causing problems for everyone.

We’ve got two fairly inconsistent players in terms of what they want or are able to do on court. But it’s clear that right now Cobolli worries me quite a bit, because he’s really not serving very well. He can have huge blackouts in his matches, on top of having a catastrophic attitude in some sets. Blockx also has a big temperament, but mentally he’s more stable and solid in my view. I also think this style of play can annoy Cobolli and force him to try to do a bit too much. On paper it’s a big match that could go in all sorts of directions. And while in general I think Cobolli is good to back, this time I feel like he deserves to be the underdog, which is a bit weird, isn’t it?