Two Aussies will head to Mexico this week after putting up reasonable performances at Delray Beach as the ATP tour moves once again.
Again on hard court and again with tough asks in the first round, Matthew Ebden and Marinko Matosevic will fly the flag for Australia in a competitive line-up in Acapulco.
David Ferrer, John Isner, Andy Murray, Grigor Dimitrov and Kevin Anderson (winner at Delray Beach) round off the top five seeds in the tournament as 500 ATP ranking points are on the line for the winner.
Our boys have very challenging match-ups in their first and possibly last encounters in Mexico this year.
Marinko Matosevic will play the fourth seed Dimitrov in what should prove to be a very entertaining and hard-hitting contest between two baseliners.
This will be the first meeting between the two and Marinko, although not favourite, should back himself to pull off an upset here. If he does so, the draw opens up significantly.
Our other Aussie, Matt Ebden, will also have a tough first round encounter against the experienced Jeremy Chardy of France.
This will be a tough test for Ebden but he should take pride in his last two close losses, in which he played reasonably well.
Matt has had a challenging year so far in 2014, but has continued to play through tournaments lifting his ranking and confidence while on tour.
In the women’s, Ashleigh Barty has to make it past qualifying to play in the main draw.
Ash had to beat Lauren Davis of the USA on Monday to make it to the final stage of qualifying, where she will play Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine.
Barty (who suffered a nightmare draw at the Australian Open, having to face the firepower of Serena Williams first up) has been impressive, competing alongside our victorious Fed Cup team who smashed an under-strength Russian unit earlier this month.
In other tournaments (previewed in the coming days) all the big guns will be out in force as Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal compete again in Dubai.
Last week, Venus Williams took out the title in Dubai, Rafa came back from match point down in the final to win at Rio while Kevin Anderson and Ernest Gulbis took out Delray Beach and Marseille respectively.
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