Lyon, October 22: Wawrinka's last stand, Jacquet at home and Herbert's net rushes at Fritz

The second round in Lyon is played indoors on hard courts this year. The clay of the tournament's earlier incarnation is gone, and the city's autumn stays outside the hall. The day is not built around its highest rankings. It is built around three players who have no business being this interesting: a 41-year-old on his farewell lap, a local qualifier who rides to work from home and a 35-year-old serve-and-volleyer who refuses to stop coming forward.

Their opponents are three seeds who come in either on a bye or on a bad run, and each of them has a question to answer about his own form. These are the three matches I'll go through:

13:30 — Pierre-Hugues Herbert — Taylor Fritz
17:00 — Flavio Cobolli — Stan Wawrinka
18:30 — Kyrian Jacquet — Brandon Nakashima

Times are UTC.

Pierre-Hugues Herbert — Taylor Fritz

Herbert has spent the week turning survival into control. In qualifying he had to come from a set down twice. He beat Jurij Rodionov 6-7(5) 7-5 6-0 and Maxim Mrva 4-6 6-3 6-1. Then he handled Sebastián Báez 6-3 6-4 as if the main draw were the easier part of the job.

Aurélien Canot called him "one of the last true serve-and-volleyers on the tour" (Sports.fr). That description is the whole problem Fritz has to solve. Herbert is ranked 290th, but he has always been more at home on indoor hard than anywhere else. He has won 62% of his matches on that surface this season, and his game looks sharper than his ranking.

Fritz arrives carrying a bad autumn quietly. He has lost four of his last five matches. In Shanghai his serve kept Tsitsipas at bay for a set, and then the Greek found his attacking rhythm and the match slid away 6-3 5-7 3-6. He starts Lyon after a bye, so there is no evidence yet of how his timing feels under this roof.

To my eye, the key is the first few return games. If Fritz makes Herbert volley from his shoelaces, the American's weight of shot should tell. If Herbert gets to approach on his own terms, Fritz will have to play a style of tennis he rarely sees anymore. Herbert has three matches on this court behind him, and those legs may feel heavy by the end, or they may simply feel at home.

I think Fritz is closer to the win, and the serve should carry him through most holds. I am less sure about a comfortable margin, though. Herbert is too awkward and too confident right now for a rout. Fritz covering −3.5 is far from guaranteed. A tight two-setter with a tie-break in it looks more likely to me than a quick night.

Flavio Cobolli — Stan Wawrinka

This is the story of the day, and it is not a ceremonial one. Wawrinka is playing his penultimate tournament before his farewell in Basel. On Tuesday he did not wave goodbye to Martín Landaluce. He fought him for three sets and won 6-3 6-7(2) 7-6(5).

The way that match went says a lot about him at 41. He led early and lost the middle-set tie-break. He then had to escape pressure right at the start of the decider and missed chances to close it out. He also came back from a deficit in the final tie-break. Tennis TV summed it up as "Wawrinka rolls back the years" (TennisActu). That is a nice line, but the better sign was how often he refused to let the match get away.

Cobolli is ranked sixth and is having the kind of week you would rather spend in a quiet room. He has lost four straight matches. In Shanghai, Mannarino broke up his rhythm in a 1-6 6-4 3-6 defeat. Before that came a 3-6 2-6 loss to Safiullin in Beijing. He has played three indoor hard matches this season and lost all three. He still has the season-ending championships to chase, which gives this week real purpose and adds real pressure.

The central tension is sharpness against recovery. Wawrinka has already felt this court under pressure, but he had a long, emotional battle and now a quick turnaround. Whether that leaves anything in his legs is guesswork, so I treat it as an open question rather than a fact. Cobolli is fresher, and his best route is to keep the veteran moving instead of handing him stationary balls to strike.

The prices make Cobolli a clear favourite, and on paper he should be. But I don't trust his rhythm yet, and Wawrinka's ball-striking is exactly the kind that punishes a nervous opponent. I expect a long, uneven match, and the over on 22.5 games looks reasonable. With Wawrinka at +3.5, I think the veteran keeps it close, however the result falls.

Kyrian Jacquet — Brandon Nakashima

Jacquet's comfort this week is not a figure of speech. He sleeps at home, rides to the venue and plays in front of kids from the academy where he trains. After beating Matteo Berrettini 7-6(4) 7-5 he said simply: "There's nothing better than playing at home" (Orange Sport). He admitted he had tears in his eyes afterwards.

That win came after three rounds from qualifying, and it came through composure rather than fireworks. He survived the early pressure, took the opening tie-break and waited out a locked second set until a late opening appeared. Then he served it out. He has also credited coach Stéphane Robert with steadying his mental approach after the Asian swing.

There is one caveat I can't ignore. Jacquet said he felt "hypo" during the Berrettini match and struggled to see the ball before the first tie-break. What caused it and whether it has fully passed is unclear. A qualifier's workload on top of that makes his physical state the biggest unknown of the day.

Nakashima is an awkward opponent for an emotional run, because he does not get flustered. Against Hamad Medjedović he won the first tie-break and lost the second. He then pulled away 6-2 in the decider as if nothing had happened. There is also a small irony here: earlier this autumn he beat Berrettini by exactly the same 7-6(4) 7-5 score Jacquet celebrated on Tuesday.

I think Nakashima is closer to the win. His patience is well suited to making Jacquet build points instead of riding the crowd. Still, Jacquet has the nerve and the home energy to stay in the sets, and +2.5 games for him looks decent to my eye. I expect something tight, probably decided by one break or one tie-break.

Wawrinka's legs, Cobolli's nerve and a local run in Lyon

The day comes down to three questions. Does Wawrinka have one more long fight in him? Can Cobolli find his rhythm before the season runs out? And is Jacquet's home run a moment or a beginning? Herbert against Fritz is the stylistic treat, a reminder of what tennis looked like when players came to the net on purpose.

If I could see only one match, it would be the Swiss farewell, because it may not stay ceremonial for long. The AI cappers have the concrete picks for all three matches on the match pages, and they go into far more detail there than I do here.