French star Gael Monfils looks to reach the last eight of the Qatar Open when he plays hard serving Ben Becker in the second round.
Monfils will have drawn heart from being the only player to take a set off Novak Djokovic at last week's Mubadala World Tennis Championships exhibition event in Abu Dhabi. Djokovic routed Roger Federer and David Ferrer but in his opening match against Monfils he was pushed all the way before winning in three sets.
Monfils has enjoyed some decent results in Doha in the past, beating Rafa Nadal here three years ago before losing to Andy Roddick in the semis in three sets. He's seeded fourth this time round and he made a solid start, enjoying a 7-5, 6-3 win over Rui Machado in Tuesday's late night encounter.
Becker has the serve to cause him a few more problems. The German is probably most famous for being the last ever opponent for Andre Agassi, defeating the American legend at the 2006 US Open and he's never quite made the same headlines for anything else.
He's currently ranked a long way from his career high of 38, injury seeing him topple to outside the top 300. However he's in the main draw here on a protected ranking and saw off Russia's Igor Kunitsyn 6-4, 7-5 in round one.
However Monfils won both their previous matches in straight sets in 2010. Look for him to make it a hat-trick on Wednesday night.
