It will be the very first career meeting between Juan Martin Del Potro and Gael Monfils when two of the marquee names in the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament draw collide on Tuesday.
Amidst high expectations, Del Potro is off to a relatively slow start in 2013. The seventh-ranked Argentine has played only one event and it resulted in a third-round loss to Jeremy Chardy at the Australian Open. Del Potro then had a well-documented and somewhat controversial absence from Argentina’s first-round Davis Cup victory over Germany.
Monfils missed much of last season with a knee injury, but he has played decent tennis so far this year. The 26-year-old Frenchman, down at No. 107 in the world, reached the quarterfinals in Doha, the semis in Auckland, the third round in Melbourne, and he advanced one round last week in Montpellier before bowing out to countryman and eventual champion Richard Gasquet.
An upset certainly is not out of the question, but Del Potro is a proven winner on indoor hard courts. The No. 2 seed finished runner-up to Roger Federer last year in Rotterdam, beat Federer for the Basel title, and made it out of group play for the World Tour Finals last four.
Prediction: Del Potro 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-3
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