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Australian John Millman will be out to continue his strong season and push up the world rankings when he takes on Stefano Travaglia in the first round at Wimbledon. Join The Roar for live scores from around 11:30pm (AEST).
Millman, who has long been something of a journeyman is having what appears to be a career-best year in 2018 at the age of 29.
The Australian, who was injured at times during 2017, finished last year strongly and then started this year with a solid Aussie summer, including getting out of the first round at his home grand slam.
Continued good form, including a tournament victory on clay at Aix En has landed him just outside the top 60 in the world.
While he fell out of the French Open in the first round to Denis Shapovalov, he has since had wins on grass against Nicolas Mahut, Marius Copil and Gilles Muller, with Novak Djokovic and Marco Cecchinato the last two men to beat him.
His 26-year-old opponent, Travaglia, is ranked 137 in the world and had to come through qualifying in order to make it into the main draw.
It comes after he failed to qualify for the French Open main draw, which, interestingly enough is the tournament he would have been expected to qualify for, rather than the grass court championships.
His run through the grass court season hasn’t been terrible though, and to go through qualifying he has to be doing something right.
Despite a second round loss at the Ilkey Challenger where he fell to Michael Mmoh, he didn’t lose a set during qualifying, beating Ivan Nedelko, Mats Moraing and Alessandro Giannessi. This will be a much tougher battle though, with Millman very strong at the back of the court and on the defensive.
Where the players he has faced before were all specialists on the clay court, Millman has proven himself on grass previously, and as such, the Aussie goes in as a strong favourite.
Prediction
The Mailman has started the grass court season strongly enough and should get the better of Travaglia here, even if it does take a while to assert some dominance.
Millman in four sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this first round match from 11:30pm (AEST) and don’t forget to add a comment in the section below.