Fellow Australians Lleyton Hewitt and Bernard Tomic will kick off their Toronto campaigns on Monday. They are set for respective meetings with Julien Benneteau and Ivo Karlovic.
Lleyton Hewitt vs. Julien Benneteau
Hewitt and Benneteau will be squaring off for the fourth time in their careers and for the first time in more than five years when they clash in round one of the Rogers Cup on Monday. The head-to-head series stands at 2-1 in favor of Hewitt, who most recently prevailed in three sets at the 2009 Sydney event. Their other hard-court encounter was won by Benneteau, in straight sets at the 2008 Las Vegas tournament.
Both veterans are still going relatively strong 10 years after their first meeting. Hewitt, 33, is a respectable 19-13 for the season. He captured a grass-court title in Newport last month and he is coming off a third-round showing in Washington, D.C., where he fell to eventual champion Milos Raonic in a pair of tiebreakers. Benneteau, 32, registers at a decent 46th in the world as of Sunday but he has struggled at the ATP level since reaching the Indian Wells quarterfinals. The Frenchman lost his first match since Wimbledon, a 6-4, 6-3 decision against Donald Young in Washington, D.C. Current form favors Hewitt, who generally fares well on North American hard courts.
Pick: Hewitt in 2
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Ivo Karlovic vs. (Q) Bernard Tomic
Karlovic and Tomic will be going head-to-head for the fourth time in their careers and for the second time during this current hard-court stretch. They just faced each other in the Bogota final, with Tomic surviving a 7-6(5), 3-6, 7-6(4) thriller. The 21-year-old Australian has won all three of their previous encounters, having also benefited from a Benneteau retirement in a 2013 Bangkok match before scoring a 7-6(6), 7-6(3) victory in Paris Masters qualifying.
Neither man fared particularly well in their first post-Bogota tournament. Karlovic played consecutive third-set tiebreaker matches in Washington D.C., outlasting Benoit Paire before going down to Steve Johnson. Tomic took care of Alejandro Gonzalez then fell to Denis Istomin 6-4, 7-6(6). Karlovic, a four-time runner-up on the ATP Tour this season, is playing some of the best tennis of his career at 35 years old. He owns 27 ATP-level wins in 2014 and is in position to be seeded for the U.S. Open at 31st in the world. Karlovic would probably like the Toronto courts to be even faster, but the surface is still advantageous to the 6’11” Croat.
Pick: Karlovic in 3
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