And yet. A week before he had won the grass-court event at Queen's, confirming the special marriage between his serve-volley game and that fastest of surfaces; heading south across London, he was ranked 20th in the world, an outsider but one homing in fast.
Neither was it an entirely unfamiliar take. Three years before, another 17-year-old, Sweden's Mats Wilander, had gone to his first French Open and beaten the second, third, fourth and fifth seeds en route to triumphing in the final.