Florian Mayer to take on Feliciano Lopez
World number 44, Feliciano Lopez, looks to make an impression at this year’s ABN AMRO World Tennis in Rotterdam on Tuesday. The Spaniard begins his campaign against the slightly higher ranked German Florian Mayer. The pair is playing at the ATP 500 level
event this week.
Coming from a first round upset at the SA Tennis Open, Lopez is playing in his fourth tour level event for the season. Starting the year at the 2011 Brisbane International as the sixth seed, Lopez moved into the second round defeating Philipp Petzschner
only to be ousted by eventual semi-finalist, Kevin Anderson.
His second tour level run of the year came at the 2011 Medibank International Sydney. Again seeded sixth in the event, Lopez became the first seed casualty of the event as he was forced to exit in the first round by wildcard entrant, Juan Martin del Potro.
Lopez’s Australian Open run was equally disappointing. Seeded 31st in the event, Lopez moved into the second round after doing away with Alejandro Falla in straight sets. However, he was ousted in the second round by local wildcard entrant, Bernand
Tomic.
Returning to the tour immediately after the Grand Slam, Lopez participated in the SA Tennis Open in Johannesburg where he was the defending champion and the top seed. However, the Spaniard was ousted from the event in the first round by Canadian Frank Dancevic.
His loss here caused Lopez to slip eleven places in the ranking to the 44th position.
Looking to climb back in the rankings, Lopez returns to Rotterdam for the fifth year. Debuting in 2003, Lopez failed to make it past the first round losing to Yevgeny Kafelnikov. His last run at the event came in 2010, when he was ousted in the first round
by Nikolay Davydenko. In fact, Lopez has failed to make it past the first round in Rotterdam every time he has participated. Although the Spaniard looks to change that, given his recent form, he might just be in for disappointing week.
Mayer on the other hand is playing in his third year here. Debuting in 2007 and then returning in 2010, Mayer enjoyed quarterfinal runs on both occasions, losing to Ivan Ljubicic in 2007 and pulling out from the match in 2010 due to a left hamstring tear.
Like Lopez, Mayer is also playing in his fourth tour level event this year. However, unlike the Spaniard, Mayer has found his footing having enjoyed quarterfinal runs or better in all three events.
Starting the year at Brisbane, Mayer made his way into the quarterfinal before losing to Radek Stepanek. His Sydney run a week later was stopped short in the semis by eventual champion, Viktor Troicki. Playing at the PBZ Zagreb Indoors last week as the fifth
seed, Mayer made it all the way to the semi-final before losing to eventual runner up, Michael Berrer.
Playing Lopez in Rotterdam on Tuesday, Mayer already leads the hard court head to head score by 1-0. Their last meeting had come in the 2010 Stockholm Open where Mayer had emerged victorious with a loss of only four games.
Mayer already enjoys the statistical and psychological advantage of having defeated Lopez once before. In addition to that, the German has been enjoying a better form than Lopez. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Mayer edged past Lopez into the next round.
Tags: