THE match

Fils was really fed up with the pressure from the French media. Now here he is, victorious at the biggest warm-up tournament before the US Open, and so there are new expectations. But we know Arthur still has a lot of progress to make in this format. Just in terms of his body, for one. It needs to hold up!

On the other side of the net, Tsitsi showed a poorer level in Winston-Salem. Same thing in the previous tournaments, actually. I don’t see him suddenly transcending himself out of nowhere on a fast surface. And Fils has already beaten him 5 times out of 5, including an absolutely MASSIVE thrashing this year in Miami.

I was already starting to tell myself that coach Patosh was going to cook up a hell of a game plan for Stefanos, but honestly, what other game can Stefanos even play?

We saw that Fils really struggled against Jodar because the guy was basically doing windshield-wiper defense, planted three meters behind his baseline. But today’s Fils would beat Jodar in my opinion. He was still lacking confidence back then, and Cincinnati changed some things. Especially the fact that his tennis and his attitude now burn a lot less energy. He’s much more solid and mature. He doesn’t flinch at all from the back of the court. Enough to make Papa Stefanos lose it, who, let’s not forget, is going to suffer on the backhand side against Tutur’s juicy heavy shots!