ESTORIL, Portugal—If there’s one thing harder than being the hometown favorite, it’s playing the hometown favorite. This was the situation faced by Juan Martin del Potro in his first match on clay since his fifth-set defeat by Roger Federer at the 2009 French Open. Unable to play for almost a year with a right wrist injury, del Potro has shown flashes of his old form since his return to the tour—most notably in reaching the semifinals of Indian Wells and taking the title in Delray Beach—and the casual dominance of his 6-2 first set over local qualifier Pedro Sousa promised more of the same. However, a woeful service game in the second set gave Sousa an opportunity; spurred on by the vocal crowd on Court Central, he took the second set and broke del Potro in the opening game of the third. Victory was a real but fleeting possibility as del Potro raised his level to take the third set and the match 6-3.
The Argentine returns to Court Central tomorrow against Colombia’s Alejandro Falla, following Robin Soderling’s match against Jeremy Chardy. But the most eagerly anticipated second-round encounter in Estoril is that of Frederico Gil versus Fernando Verdasco. The Spaniard is out of the Top 10 following his failure to defend his Monte Carlo points and has been looking increasingly frustrated and desperate in practice, whereas Gil is at his career high in the rankings—No. 62—after a strong performance in Monaco. Gil is a rock star in Estoril and deservedly so; he is the highest-ranked Portuguese player in this small country’s history and the first Portuguese finalist at this very tournament last year. Gil began his tournament with a straight sets victory over qualifier Flavio Cipolla.
If Verdasco can beat Gil, he’ll earn the chance of a third-round encounter with Milos Raonic and the chance to show him the ‘real tennis’ he invoked after consecutive defeats to the Canadian during the spring hard-court season—or maybe not. Raonic was fearsome in 6-4, 6-4 defeat of former Top 20-player Igor Andreev. Andreev is a shadow of his former self, but Raonic looked fit, focused and altogether ready for clay-court season. While Andreev gave him little to do except punishing baseline exchanges, many of Raonic’s forehand winners drew gasps from the Centralito crowd and his movement on the red dirt was less awkward than expected, even if he does lope rather than slide.
Raonic was typically low-key about his progress: “It’s getting there, day by day it gets better and better, week by week I’m playing better every match and I’m just trying my best to keep improving, not coming in with too many expectations. The whole goal is just the development of my tennis and improvement.”
The next step to this development is a meeting with Portuguese wildcard Joao Souza, who is likely to have the whole crowd behind him. Raonic identified the need to “stay mature” about the situation and find a way to win as a key stage in his development. The disarming young Canadian looks fitter than ever—and has had a haircut which makes him look less like a Simpsons character—and it would be a brave punter who bet against him going deeper in this tournament, even with the prospect of Verdasco’s ‘real tennis’ standing in his way.