DEL POTRO FACES LOPEZ

David Nalbandian’s countryman, Juan Martin Del Potro, will take on Feliciano Lopez of Spain in his opening match in the BNP Paribas Open. It will be a second round match.

There have been concerns over Del Potro’s fitness. His wrist has not been in a perfect condition in the last 10 days or so and there had been speculations in the last few days that he might decide to pull himself out of the Indian Wells event, but, he hasn’t released an official statement regarding that yet. So, it is believed that he would take part in the competition.

Del Potro’s performance in the 2014 season has been a little up and down. He lifted the trophy at Sydney right at the start of the season and thus, entered the Australian Open as a strong contender, but, as a few other top players, he also had to get knocked out pretty early from there and it was in that tournament that his wrist began giving him a few problems.

The Argentinean took part in a couple of events even with that wrist trouble, but, he was far from his best and in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, he had to leave his match against Somdev Devvarman in between.

As far as Lopez is concerned, his form has been very poor this season. But, in his first match at Indian Wells, he secured a comfortable victory in straight sets. So, he would have been confident about taking on Del Potro who is coming back from a short break.

Del Potro is clearly the favourite, but, the chances of him being in rhythm are not that good because he had been giving his wrist some rest and thus, has not trained that much before this tournament.