Montreux, 9 September: Burel's fifth match in six days, and Galfi's back against Brancaccio's high ball

The second round in Montreux has that pleasant late-season quality where the draw stops being a hierarchy and becomes a set of personal stories. Clara Burel is here on the fifth match of her week, a year removed from a torn ACL, playing a 20-year-old who has just beaten a top-150 clay-courter over nearly three hours. Dalma Galfi, the best-ranked of the eight women in play, has to solve a court that bounces — and her own back does not like bounce. And in the night slot a Swiss wildcard gets the crowd, the tiredness and the chance of her season.

Nobody on this slate is protecting a reputation. All four matches are about someone trying to prove that a good week was not an accident. Here are the four I want to talk through, in the order they start:

12:00 — Lazaro Garcia — Sobolieva
12:00 — Brockmann — Burel
13:30 — Brancaccio — Galfi
16:30 — Granwehr — Noha Akugue

Times are UTC.

Andrea Lazaro Garcia — Anastasiia Sobolieva

Of the eight players in action, Lazaro Garcia produced the tidiest opening round: after an early trade of breaks with Angela Fita Boluda she settled into the long rallies and won 6-3 6-1, the second set barely a contest. That is very much the shape of her clay season — 19 wins in 30 matches on the dirt this year, a title already banked, and a US Open qualifying match in New York where she survived a pile of match points and then ran away with the decider. At 31 she has become the least panicky player in these rooms.

Sobolieva, nine years younger, has actually been the better clay-courter by raw percentage this season — 39 wins from 53 on the surface is a serious number for someone ranked around 190. But her first round told a different story than Lazaro's: a sharp first set against Mina Hodzic, then the thread lost in the second, then a nervy 7-5 in the decider that she won by pushing rather than waiting for the miss. She has an extra day of rest and a habit of coming in waves; Lazaro has one fewer day and a shorter match behind her. They have never met.

Lazaro Garcia talks about her tennis in terms of temperature rather than technique. "The calm I have now makes me play better and makes me happier off the court," she said this spring, adding that she is at her highest point of belief (Punto de Break). On clay that calm is worth games: she changes height, drags the rally out one shot longer than the opponent wants and lets the errors arrive on their own.

To my eye Lazaro Garcia is the steadier reference point here, and the −0.5 game handicap at 1.82 reads about right rather than generous. I expect a long, patchy match with a Sobolieva surge somewhere in the middle — the over on 21.5 games looks the safer half of that market — and the Spaniard closing it out because she will still be playing the same match in the third set.

Tessa Johanna Brockmann — Clara Burel

This is the match of the day for me, and mostly because of the calendar. Burel played every day through the Saint-Palais final on Sunday, lost it to Fiona Ferro 6-2 3-6 5-7 after leading, travelled to Switzerland and was back on court Tuesday, where she dispatched Katerina Tsygourova 6-1 6-4 with almost no visible hangover. Five matches, two countries, six days — for a player in her first full season after a torn right ACL and a forearm problem that pushed the comeback back further.

Her own account of returning to clay is the most human thing in the digest. "It's the leg I slide on, so at first the sliding was a bit of a disaster," Burel said of the repaired knee, and of the whole year away: "I always kept hoping to heal and try to return to my best level" (Tennis Actu). She is ranked outside the top 400 because of that missing year, not because of her tennis, and 14 wins from 23 clay matches this season is a working comeback, not a hopeful one.

Brockmann is the reason this is worth watching rather than a formality. She beat Tamara Zidansek 4-6 7-6(4) 6-3 in the first round — down a set, refusing to let a vicious second set go, then the more energetic player in the decider after nearly three hours. That is the win of a young player discovering she belongs here rather than visits. Her clay year overall has been ordinary, 16-17, well short of the 43-18 she put together last season, and Burel simply has more clay in her hands: more height, more direction, a forehand that turns neutral rallies. Brockmann's route is to make the afternoon physically unpleasant and see whether tired legs still move to the corners.

Burel at 1.105 is priced as if the fatigue does not exist, and I do not quite believe that; the plus-six games for Brockmann at 1.706 is the line I would think about longest. Still, I expect Burel to win — probably in two, probably with one rocky stretch where the accumulated week shows — and the over on 19.5 games feels closer to the truth than the under.

Nuria Brancaccio — Dalma Galfi

The most interesting tactical puzzle of the day, and the bookmakers agree — 1.84 both ways, a straight coin. Galfi is the better-ranked player and the cleaner striker, and her first round against Valentina Ryser was efficient, 6-4 6-3, quick enough to save energy. But her season has been a slow leak: 7-8 on clay after 23-8 last year, and losses to Mayar Sherif and Ella Seidel where she barely got off the ground.

The reason this is a puzzle is that Galfi has told everyone what hurts. "It is well known that my back cannot handle high balls coming to the backhand," she said in the spring, adding that without rhythm she becomes uncertain (Nemzeti Sport). Brancaccio, meanwhile, is precisely the sort of clay player who lives on shoulder-height crosscourt balls. Her 6-4 7-5 over Francesca Curmi was scrappier than the score suggests — fast starts in both sets, then long stretches given back — but she closed it, which she has not always done in a 20-18 clay year. She also played a short doubles match on Tuesday, which I would not read too much into.

Her coach Andrea Trono put the gap between ceiling and output where it probably belongs: "Nuria will make the next step when she sees in herself what we see in her," adding that she has uncommon talent (Spazio Tennis). No previous meeting to lean on. So it comes down to the court: a lively, high-bouncing surface is Brancaccio's argument, heavy conditions that let Galfi set her feet and hit flat are the Hungarian's.

I genuinely do not know who wins this, and the price says the market doesn't either. Galfi has the easier power and the shorter first round; Brancaccio has the game plan that targets the one thing Galfi has admitted she cannot do. My leaning is that it goes three sets and past the 22.5 games total, with whoever dictates the height of the ball in the first four games taking the match.

Alina Granwehr — Noma Noha Akugue

The night match, the home player, and a recovery question. Granwehr came through Lucie Nguyen Tan 6-3 5-7 6-4 — a fast start, a lost grip on the second set, then the good news: after all that time on court she came back aggressive rather than passive. But she plays again the very next day, and her recent record is full of three-setters that went the distance, including a 6-7(1) 7-6(5) 6-7(5) loss to Anja Stankovic that must still ache to think about.

Noha Akugue also had to turn a match around, beating Denisa Zoldakova 5-7 6-2 6-4 by finally committing to her left-handed forehand and making Zoldakova defend from awkward places. That completed comeback matters, because her year has been a string of narrow three-set defeats in matches she had chances to control — Anna Bondar, Weronika Falkowska, Anna Siskova, all lost after winning a set or leading. She named the flaw herself after her first main-draw appearance at a bigger event this season: she had chances in the first set and did not take them (Porsche Newsroom).

She is the better player — 137 against 308, and a left-handed forehand that is the only real weapon on court — and she has an extra day's rest. Granwehr's answer has to be variation: deep central balls that deny the angle, changes of height, and the patience to make the German hit one more controlled shot than she wants to.

Noha Akugue at 1.4 looks fair, and I expect her to win, but not comfortably — her shot selection under scoreboard pressure has cost her too many matches this year for me to trust a −4 handicap. Granwehr with the crowd and a plus-four cushion at 1.782 is the more honest side of that market, and I would not be surprised by a decider going past 20.5 games.

Burel's tired legs and the height of the ball: what Montreux decides today

Two questions carry the day. Whether Burel's body has one more match in it after a week that would flatten a fully fit player, and whether Brancaccio is brave enough to bore Galfi into a back problem she has already talked about publicly. Everything else on the slate is the pleasant, unglamorous business of second-round clay: whoever still wants to run in the third set gets to Thursday.

I'd give the night slot in Montreux a look too — Granwehr playing at home on a day's turnaround is the kind of match that goes wrong for the favourite when the crowd finds a reason to make noise. The precise calls on all four belong to the AI cappers, who lay them out on the individual match pages with far more specificity than I care to.