Roger Federer will be looking for payback when he opens the defence of his ATP Indian Wells title with a second round match against Argentina\u2019s Federico Delbonis on Saturday.<\/p>\n
There aren\u2019t many players who can say they have a winning record over 20 time Grand Slam winner Federer but Delbonis is one of them.<\/p>\n
In their only other ATP meeting in 2013, Delbonis won on clay in Hamburg 7-6 (9\/7), 7-6 (7\/4).<\/p>\n
Delbonis, who is ranked 67th in the world, is no stranger to upsets in Indian Wells. In 2016 he shocked world number two Andy Murray to reach the fourth round.<\/p>\n
He reached the second round here this week by saving two match points to defeat another American Ryan Harrison in three sets.<\/p>\n
Federer, who regained the world number one ranking last month, is on a quest to make history in the California desert by winning an unprecedented sixth Indian Wells title.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Swiss marvel continues to defy the ageing process, claiming his 20th Grand Slam title and sixth Australian Open crown in January.<\/p>\n
He has enjoyed a perfect start to 2018 by winning both events he has competed in and taking his career singles title tally to 97.<\/p>\n
Federer told reporters on Thursday that he won\u2019t be taking anyone for granted in this draw.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t come here to lose in the first round two and two,\u201d he said. \u201cI care about the moment. I care about the results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, unseeded Gael Monfils rolled to an easy 6-3, 6-3 victory over Aussie Matthew Ebden in his opening match at the ATP Indian Wells tournament on Friday.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old Frenchman needed just 71 minutes to dispatch Ebden.<\/p>\n
Monfils began 2018 by claiming his seventh career ATP Title in Doha, but this is the first time he has come into Indian Wells unseeded in the men\u2019s draw since 2008.<\/p>\n
Monfils hammered six aces, won 68 percent of his first serve points and broke Ebden four times.<\/p>\n
Monfils improved to 2-0 lifetime over Ebden having beaten him previously at the 2010 Australian Open.<\/p>\n
Monfils will face world No. 18 John Isner in the second round. The Frenchman has beaten Isner five times in nine career meetings, including winning four of their past five.<\/p>\n
Their most recent encounter took place a year ago in the California desert, with Monfils winning easily 6-2, 6-4 to reach the third round.<\/p>\n
Indian Wells marks the first time playing on hard courts for Monfils since the Australian Open in January. He is coming off four straight weeks on the South American clay court circuit so needed to make the necessary adjustments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ball was flying quite a lot. It was not easy to adapt but today I was just lucky to get the win and in straight sets is always good. I will be focused for the next one,\u201d Monfils said.<\/p>\n
Ebden committed five double faults and won just 39 percent of his second serve points on Friday.<\/p>\n
He is playing in the Indian Wells main draw for the first time since 2014.<\/p>\n
Wild card Ernesto Escobedo surprised fellow young gun Frances Tiafoe 7-5, 6-3 in the first career meeting between the two Americans.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old Tiafoe, who is ranked 64th in the world, was fresh off his first career title at Delray Beach on February 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roger Federer will be looking for payback when he opens the defence of his ATP Indian Wells title with a second round match against Argentina\u2019s Federico Delbonis on Saturday. There aren\u2019t many players who can say they have a winning record over 20 time Grand Slam winner Federer but Delbonis is one of them. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24429,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24427\/revisions\/24429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}