The entire focus of the opening day at Indian Wells is on the return of Juan Martin Del Potro to the Masters 1000 event. The giant from Tandil made a remarkable return at Delray Beach some weeks ago when he surged through to the semifinal and now he faces a bigger challenge altogether. The question is, where abouts is Del Potro’s game really at this moment in time?
The Argentine admitted before flying out to California that he was “much more motivated after those wins” and that “playing matches helped my wrist to adapt. My backhand and overall play is evolving one step at a time but I neede to compete”. Del Potro will commence his campaign against tricky American qualifier Tim Smyczek but before that there was plenty of reasons to smile about for the Argentine Legion.
Leo Mayer got the better of Australian mountain Sam Groth 6-4, 6-3, with a decisive break in both sets, and will now face Viktor Troicki in the second round. Also booking his place in the second round was Federico Delbonis, who overcame Colombia’s Santi Giraldo 6-3, 7-6. The Argentine was 4-0 and then 5-2 in the second set and even managed to turn around 4-1 deficit in the tiebreak to frustrate his fellow South American, who hasn’t quite kickstarted his season under Pepe Checa so far.
As well as the Argentines, there was a battle of rising stars early on between Borna Coric and Lucas Pouille which went the Croatian’s way 6-2, 7-5. The youngster backed up his Davis Cup heroics against Belgium on Sunday with a solid opening victory and will now try and find his way past Thomaz Bellucci in the second round.
There were also Spanish smiles on the opening morning of play at the BNP Paribas Open after Pablo Carreño got the better of Evgeny Donskoy in straight sets and Iñigo Cervantes shot down Nicolas Almagro in three to continue with his career-best form.
