Which is fine.  Not enough of you read this blog, unfortunately, which minimizes your insight on this splendiferous sport.

But most of you are just fanboys and fangirls, anyways, so what do you care?

I had Evans’ scare of Wawrinka in my sights: the Swiss looked dubious early, but thankfully he’s through.

I had Felix’s win over Tsitsipas.

I had Kyrgios losing to Kohlschreiber. Wrote two posts on that result.

My very apparent skepticism of Coric has payed-off, as well.

With Thiem’s continued vulnerability on these hard courts, that bracket looks awfully soft at this point. Novak’s tough draw is suddenly a match with the volatile Monfils (maybe, if that guy can keep it together), and then . . . Novak v Karlovic QF. . . 😀

Character sure does matter, apparently, if you follow that line of reasoning. Or is it composure? Can you have one without the other? All about the big stage, folks. In all sports. Funny thing about Kyrgios is he’s the worst case scenario: he tanks the smaller matches, rises to the occasion against better players. This is a recipe, like the guys who can’t win under the big lights, for long-term under-achievement.

4-6 4-6 against Philipp yesterday is a tank, by the way.

On the other hand . . .

FAA looks good, but could meet his recent nemesis Serbian Laslo Djere in R16; this fellow beat FAA twice on clay in the last few weeks. Remember, FAA’s IW/MI prep involved playing on clay; pretty solid form from this kid. That performance yesterday made my must-watch list. If you didn’t see that match, whatever: just wave your pom poms around in-the-air-like-you-just-don’t-care, because you probably don’t. You’re probably just a fanboy.

FAA should face the winner of Zverev/Raonic. That’s how this has to go.

Winner of Thiem (if he can out-hit and out-drop-shot enough guys) and Monfils gets the Djokovic QF.

I didn’t watch Sascha or Raonic. But going-on past play, Raonic should come-out of that bracket and play FAA. Or maybe Zverev is going to pull his shit together.

The 18 year-old Canadian has monster game in that young, mature-beyond-his-years set of skills. He can turn, like Novak, a great defensive “get” into a passing winner, no problem. You can’t teach that athleticism. We’ll just keep our hopes up on this guy. Yesterday was his ~15th ATP-level match. Maybe he doesn’t do as well as I hope in IW, but, like Tsitsipas last year, maybe this becomes a spring-board to a break-through year for the youngster.

I hope not: go deep, Mr. Auger-Aliassime.

Routining a top-ten guy like that yesterday has us absolutely pining for more. Is Tsitsipas a true top-ten guy? Maybe not, but the Greek has shown big tour balls of late. He had very little chance against the Canadian yesterday. FAA’s serve looks to be a huge strength and weakness. First serve is easy power, 127 mph+.  But he had a handful of DFs, three-in-a-row at one point that gave the Greek chances to get back into the match.

Didn’t happen, of course.: 6-4 6-2. Ouch.

A lot of good matches today. Stay-tuned.

PS
Unreal: