Flavio Cobolli was listed as the favorite in a French Open Day 5 preview that set up a second-round clash with Yibing Wu.
The preview rests on two simple facts: Cobolli won the only previous meeting between the pair in straight sets, and Wu arrives having dismantled Marcos Giron in his first match here, a controlled 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 win in which Wu conceded just one break.
That pairing matters because the preview frames Cobolli as one of the best players in the clay season — a player who has built recent form on the surface — even while admitting he has gone off the boil in his last two matches. By contrast, the piece describes Wu as a talented player who has long struggled to put it all together; his victory over Giron is offered as evidence that some of those pieces can still come together at Roland-Garros.
The tension in the matchup is straightforward: the preview makes Cobolli the sensible pick on paper because of his clay credentials and their head-to-head history, but the same article flags two warning signs. Cobolli’s form has dipped in his last two matches, and Wu’s win — 7-5, 6-2, 6-4, with a single break conceded — was the kind of composed performance that questions the neat favorite-versus-underdog storyline.
The predictions piece did not stop at Cobolli and Wu. It also ran through other Day 5 matchups, including Ben Shelton versus Raphael Collignon, Jan-Lennard Struff against Jaime Faria, and Martin Landaluce and V., sketching the card and where upset risk might lurk across the draw.
Put plainly: the preview’s read is conditional. If Cobolli can flip the switch that made him one of the season’s stronger clay-court performers, his prior victory over Wu and his clay résumé make him the reasonable choice. If the rust from his last two matches lingers and Wu brings the control he showed against Giron, the match becomes a genuine coin toss.
The single question that follows from the preview is which player arrives on court with the cleaner game on clay: Cobolli, to reclaim the momentum that marked his season, or Wu, to turn a polished opening win into the kind of breakthrough the predictions article says he has struggled to produce for a long time. The preview leans to Cobolli, but it leaves the door open — and that is why this Day 5 meeting is one to watch.
