John Isner will take on Marin Cilic of Croatia in the third round of the Sony Open on Tuesday.
Isner made his way into the third round with the help of a win over Ivan Dodig of Croatia. The American had to battle hard for that win. He managed to win the match in three sets by 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(5).
On the other hand, Cilic got better of Santiago Giraldo of Colombia in the second round. Cilic defeated Giraldo in the straight sets by 6-2, 6-4.
This season hasn’t been very good for either of these two players. Cilic has won a tournament this year i.e. Zagreb Open. But, apart from that tournament, his performance has been poor. He got knocked early from the US National Indoor Tennis Championships and the BNP Paribas Open.
Cilic’s performance in the Australian Open was also not great. He was beaten in the 3rd round of that tournament by Andreas Seppi of Italy. He has played 17 matches this year and he has won 13 of them.
John Isner hasn’t played too many matches this year because of injuries. He started this season by taking part in the Apia International Sydney tennis tournament. He managed to win just one match in that competition. In the second round, he was defeated by Ryan Harrison of USA.
He couldn’t take part in the Australian Open because of an injury in his right knee. After getting fit, he took part in the SAP Open and US National Indoor Tennis Championships, but, he didn’t manage to perform well in those tournaments.
Isner’s most recent appearance was in the BNP Paribas Open. He was defeated by Lleyton Hewitt in the second round there. He has just managed to win 7 out of the 13 matches that he has played in this season.
Both the players are quite tall and they like playing on hard courts. Also, both the players haven’t been in good form off late. So, none of them is the hot favourite for this match. It is expected to be a tight contest.