Nicolas Almagro vs Julien Benneteau – Opening Round Preview: US Open 2011
With the main round matches of the last Grand Slam of the current year about to begin in a day’s time, world number 10, Nicolas Almagro of Spain, takes on the 81st ranked Julien Benneteau of France in the opening round
of the US Open on Tuesday.
Regarded as one of the brightest rising tennis star of the year, Almagro will take off his US Open campaign on the second day of the tournament to face the French wildcard entrant in the opening round. The contest will be staged
on the hard courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Park, of Queens, New York City, United States, with the winner of the match getting a place in the round of 64.
Spain’s number three, Almagro has been in the form of his life this current year, breaking in the top-10 players of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Rankings for the first time in July. The belligerent Spaniard
has already won 45 out of a total of 62 matches he played this year and has bagged three ATP singles championship titles so far this season.
The 81st ranked French has been struggling to get his vintage form back in this ATP season and has been playing decent tennis overall. Benneteau won 16 singles encounters this year whereas suffered defeats in 17 matches.
The 29-year-old French veteran is yet to bag his first ATP championship title and has been labouring extremely hard this season to grab one.
Both men have already faced each other on two prior occurrences and the head-to-head series between them is levelled at 1-1. The first time they went one-on-one was in the 2001 edition of New Haven Open at Yale, where Almagro defeated
the Frenchman by 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3, in the round of 32. Benneteau avenged his defeat next year by outplaying the Spaniard, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, to make it to the quarter-finals of the event at Auckland, New Zealand.
Almagro’s form has been brilliant at Cincinnati Masters, the last stop on the US Open Series, and he went till the third round of the tournament before getting defeated by the eighth seed Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic. Benneteau
was defeated in the second round clash against the world number two, Rafael Nadal of Spain, at Cincinnati Masters but is determined to put up a much better show against Almagro in his next matchup.
The two contestants have played against each other on the hard courts on their last encounters and they both have bagged one victory a piece. Being the world number 10 and having a ballistic form in the running season, Almagro
is clearly the hot favourite for winning the Tuesday’s opening round match against Benneteau. The French wildcard entrant can also be as good as any top class player on his day but he needs to come up with something extra ordinary for taking down the 10th
seed Almagro in the singles encounter.
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