A Ranking That Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

For Ben Bonzi, there is a distinction between becoming a better tennis player and having the results to prove it.

The two have not always arrived at the same time.

A few years removed from reaching his career-high ranking of world No. 42, the Frenchman can look at his tennis now and see progress. He can identify the ways his game has developed, the work he has done and the player he believes he has become. Yet injuries have repeatedly interrupted that progression, leaving him with the difficult task of rebuilding confidence and rhythm in a sport where neither waits around for you.

This week at the Winston-Salem Open, however, the results have started to catch up.

After advancing to his first ATP Tour semifinal of the season, Bonzi was unequivocal about something his current ranking–world No. 109–alone cannot explain.

“Yeah, actually, I feel that I’m a better player now than a few years ago,” Bonzi said. “But every time I play good, I have some injuries coming on the road and it’s pretty tough to come back.”

The Injury Cycle and Rebuilding Confidence

That cycle has made the past year particularly complicated. Once a player has established himself at a certain level, returning from an injury is not simply about getting healthy again. There is the expectation of returning to where he was, even while the mechanics of doing so — matches, confidence, timing — have to be rebuilt gradually.

“And, you know, when you reach some goals or some ranking, whatever you call that, the expectations are higher after that,” Bonzi said. “So it’s not easy to come back on the tour after injuries, to regain confidence, to get the rhythm again.”

It is one of the contradictions of professional tennis. A ranking provides a clean numerical assessment of where a player stands, but the path behind that number is considerably messier. Bonzi has felt that this season.

“The level is crazy on the tour,” he said. “It’s very similar from maybe top 50 to top 300. So there is no easy match. And, yeah, Challenger Tour is very difficult.”

A player can fall outside the highest levels of the tour and discover that climbing back is anything but straightforward. There are no guaranteed confidence-building matches waiting one level below.

“So you can be struggling to get a win again on Challenger Tour,” Bonzi said. “Then you come on the tour and now it’s a good week. So the ranking follows.”

Then came the point he wanted to make most clearly.

“But, I mean, if I have a general view, I feel like I’m a better player.”

Grinding Through a Tough Test in Winston-Salem

That belief has been tested this year.

Bonzi readily admits this has not been the season he wanted. But in Winston-Salem, there have been signs of the tennis he has been searching for.

His latest victory demanded patience from the beginning. There were long games on return, missed opportunities and an opponent determined to take time away from him. Bonzi was broken first and repeatedly found himself with chances to respond, only to see big serves erase break points.

“Yeah, first of all, it was a tough match, tough first sets, very long games, especially when I was returning,” Bonzi said. “I got broken first, but I had many opportunities to break back and then to break again. And I maybe got the first set a bit earlier, but it was serving very well on every break point.”

There was little outward celebration. Bonzi looked locked into the match, aware that against an aggressive opponent there was little room to ease into points.

“When you play Botic each every time, you have to be ready on the three or four first shots on every point because he’s playing fast, he’s aggressive,” Bonzi said. “And, yeah, that was the plan today.”

The victory pushed him into his first tour-level semifinal of 2026. More importantly, it gave Bonzi another piece of evidence that the tennis he believes is there is beginning to surface again.

“So, of course, it’s a great week for me,” he said. “It’s my first semis on the tour this year. Till now, it was not the best year of my career.”

His run has required some survival, too. Bonzi came through what he described as a “big battle” against another French player in the second round. With each match, though, his sense of himself on court has improved.

“It turned out to win this match and, yeah, now I’m playing better,” he said. “I feel better on the court. I feel like I can be very solid and very consistent on every game. I’m serving good also, so let’s see tomorrow.”

Nicolas Mahut and a Year of Rebuilding

There is another person watching that progress closely from Bonzi’s box.

Nicolas Mahut is one of the most recognizable French players of his generation, a former world No. 1 in doubles and five-time Grand Slam men’s doubles champion. But for Bonzi, Mahut’s significance is much more personal than the résumé attached to the face sitting courtside.

Their partnership began a year ago in Washington, at a point when Bonzi felt something needed to change.

“Well, we started one year ago in Washington,” Bonzi said. “So, we had a first-year relationship this year. But, yeah, Nico is like I called him last summer. I was struggling.”

It was not an isolated coaching adjustment. Bonzi was reconsidering the structure around his tennis altogether.

“I wanted to change my stuff and to change the environment around me,” he said. “I moved from Marseille to Paris. I changed kind of everything for the training session.”

Mahut was not a stranger brought in to engineer a quick turnaround. The two already knew each other through Davis Cup, and Bonzi remembered the ease with which they could discuss tennis.

“Yeah, I used to know him. We used to have a relationship in Davis Cup. We always felt close,” Bonzi said. “And I was really happy to talk to him about the matches and everything.”

More than anything, Bonzi saw in Mahut someone capable of helping restore something injuries and difficult results can erode quickly: conviction.

“And I felt like he could be one of the people who gave me confidence and some advice on my tennis.”

A year later, Bonzi is not pretending the partnership has immediately produced everything either man envisioned.

“This year, of course, if you look especially at the results, it’s not, I think, the year we wanted, both of us,” he said.

But that is also where Bonzi’s assessment of his career becomes particularly revealing. He does not seem interested in pretending that progress and results always move together.

“But we worked in the right way,” he said. “We tried to improve some parts of my game. So, we changed a few things. So, it’s tough sometimes to put everything together during matches.”

Perhaps Winston-Salem is not proof that everything has suddenly come together. Tennis rarely offers transformations that neatly.

But it is a week in which Bonzi has been able to feel some of the work showing up under pressure.

“I’m pretty happy about that partnership,” he said. “Yeah, I hope better results are coming.”

Looking Ahead to New York

Soon, his attention will shift to New York.

Bonzi has reason to associate the US Open with some of his best tennis. He has twice reached the third round and produced memorable victories there last season. This year, however, comes with a different backdrop. He has yet to win a Grand Slam match in 2026 and was injured at Wimbledon.

“I mean, this year I didn’t win a single match in slams,” Bonzi said. “I did three first rounds against, like, good players, and I got injured in Wimbledon.”

Still, the hard courts give him reason for optimism.

“So, I know hard courts are… I like hard courts,” he said. “Maybe New York is one of my best chance in the year to get a great result. I did two times third round. Of course, great victories last year.”

Bonzi knows his first-round opponent. He knows the opportunity ahead of him. But when asked about New York, his instinct was to bring the conversation back to the match directly in front of him.

“But first, I’m going to focus on tomorrow’s semis.”

On Court and Off: The Same Focus

It is fitting for a player whose demeanor can appear almost relentlessly composed. Bonzi rarely gives much away on court, even when the match around him becomes chaotic.

But that seriousness is only part of him.

“Like, I try to be on the court like I am in life,” Bonzi said. “Like, of course, when I come on court, it’s maybe when I’m the best. And when I play the best, I’m kind of the same outside the court.”

Then he allowed for one distinction.

“Maybe a bit funnier and a bit crazier than on the court because there I’m very focused.”

For now, focus may be exactly what Bonzi needs.

There is a semifinal immediately ahead of him and the US Open waiting beyond it. There is also a season that has not unfolded the way he or Mahut envisioned when they began working together a year ago.

But somewhere underneath the injuries, the difficult stretches and a ranking that has not always reflected how he sees his own game, Bonzi has maintained a belief that matters more than any one week: he is better than he was before.

In Winston-Salem, the results are finally beginning to make the same argument. Bonzi will play world No. 36 Ignacio Buse in the semi-finals at the ATP 250 event.

Photo credit Winston Salem