So Andy plays Fabio Fognini first on 'bn court' today 11am local time thats 6pm here.
Fabio is a clay courter who has made 3 challenger finals all on clay but won none this year. He has made steady progress up the rankings and could well be a force to reckon with at some point...but not on hard courts....he took Monaco to 5 sets in the first round of Roland Garos but still lost.
This is a nice r2 match. Andy should win but get a bit of a workout on his wrist. He'll lose to Fed, but to get three matches on his first tournament back after injury is good for his return to match fitness. I'd quite like this to go to three sets, but I suspect Andy will win in straights.
Qualifiers are always tough, especially if you haven't had as much court time as you would like. I think Andy will come through (especially with the Fed incentive) but it wouldn't surprise me if it went to three.
Again though - main thing is for the wrist to hold up.
Kinda ugly game, saved a couple of BPs, then had a gamepoint himself before getting broken. Not hitting the ball that cleanly thus far - quite a few errors. Still, better to have the ugly game early and give himself plenty of time to break back.
Fognini is hitting some nice shots in the first few games - Andy is trying to get into net and he has been passed a few times. I hope it doesn't put him off though because I wouldn't think Fognini would be able to keep it up.
Andy holds - a much better service game there.
His first serve percentage is much better since he's come back. He's still not holding serve the way he should, but it's looking better so hopefully that will continue to improve as he gets more confidence back.
Broken again. Just about to post and say that he was looking really good when he went 40-0 up, and then it just went a bit wrong.
5-1* to Fognini
Hopefully Andy can hold here and get his game in a bit better condition for the second set. He looks like he's close to playing well - but just not really moving that well so isn't looking entirely in position after shots.