FRANCE VS CROATIA

Mary Pierce’s countryman, Jeremy Chardy, will take on the local lad Milos Raonic in the first round of the Rogers Cup.

This will be the second meeting between these two players. The only match played between them so far was won by Raonic.

Raonic’s recent form has been good. The Canadian player hadn’t made a great start to the season and had moved down to no. 18 in the world rankings.

But, in the last 2-3 months, he has put up some good performances and is currently ranked 13^th in the world.

Raonic is a big serving player and he hits quite a few aces. In fact, he is at no. 4 in the list of leading ace hitters this year. So, he is quite good in that part of his game, but, he struggles in other areas especially when it comes to playing backhand shots. If he has to do well consistently against the top players in the world, he will have to work hard on those areas.

There are massive expectations with Raonic in this tournament which might pressurize him a little bit. Playing in front of jam packed home crowd isn’t always easy especially for a young player.

Chardy on the other hand hasn’t had an impressive season at all. There is no doubt that he has got a lot of potential, but, he hasn’t lived up to it so far in his career. His current world ranking is 27.

Chardy has played 32 matches this season till now out of which he has won 16 and has lost 16. In his last 3 matches, he has ended up on the losing side.

However, both these players are hugely talented and on their day, they can be quite hard to beat. It’s expected to be a cracker of a contest. On the basis of current form, Raonic might be considered as the favourite.