You're a pain in the ass, Luciano!

Darderi is unpredictable: sometimes motivated, sometimes injured, sometimes he just doesn't feel like it.

His Winston-Salem tournament is a reflection of the player himself. He plays a horrible first set against Bellucci, and even injures his knee. Then suddenly, he breaks, wants to play, fires himself up and wins the match. That’s Darderi for you. After that, you think the machine is rolling and maybe the knee wasn’t that serious. Then he gets thrashed by VDZ. I don’t understand the point of stepping on court if it’s to do that, knowing he was that limited. That’s typical Darderi. Once again we’re going to have to play guessing games with him. And even if you can often trust him to show up in the big tournaments, I’m still pretty skeptical because he’s put in a massive effort for weeks, and on top of that, he doesn’t play his best tennis on hard court. We know him: he’ll probably be a bit laborious and try to push himself because the stakes are high. But is that enough to trust him?

I’d say no, because I watched the match of his opponent Wendelken and the Brit really impressed me with his solidity. He dominated Gaubas, who finished the match with over 60 unforced errors and was unable to get any free points. The Brit didn’t make any mistakes, moved well, and also served very well, making the most of his first serve. He could even have won the match by a bigger margin. Obviously, he’s a Grand Slam rookie, but he’s already put in a lot to get through qualifying. It’s hard to trust him, because even a not-so-inspired Darderi can beat him.

I didn’t find his returning very good though; he took a lot of aces, and yet Gaubas doesn’t serve that well. Darderi could be a bit more incisive than Gaubas because he’s more powerful and a bit more resilient from the baseline, but I really liked the performance Wendelken delivered. If he still has enough energy and Darderi isn’t at his best, it could be a tight match.