No seeded players.

Of tonight’s eight round-of-16 matches, only two don’t have any seeded players. And this match is one of them.

The respective seeds in this section of the draw have been knocked out. Collignon lost to Hijikata in a match that was very average in terms of level and especially long in terms of playing time, with more than 3 hours and 12 minutes on court yesterday. That's a sequence to keep an eye on, especially since Hijikata has to play in the first rotation today. The Australian scraped through yesterday, he didn’t serve well and found himself trailing several times, but he managed to be the physically stronger of the two and tighten up his game at the end, even if it was messy at times. His forehand is wreaking havoc this week, it's clearly his best shot and he can do almost anything with it, but on the other hand, his backhand is really poor, to the point that he spends a lot of time slicing.

I already hadn’t found him impressive in his first-round match, and he hasn’t reassured me since. On the other hand, he fights, he’s got a good temperament, and he’s still hungry. The fact that he only has to play Bonzi could give him ideas. But he’s going to have to recover physically and also raise his level of play.

That’s exactly what Bonzi managed to do after a first round that I thought was average on both sides against Majchrzak. Against Halys, he had a huge dip in the first set. After having game points for 3–0, he found himself down 6–2. But from that moment on, and for almost the entire rest of the match, he maintained a stable and fairly high level of play. He managed to counter Halys well, and we should see him in the same match dynamic tonight. If he makes Hijikata play enough, and also manages to come forward a few times targeting the backhand, then he’s got a real shot.