Tommy Haas and Robby Ginepri roll back the years in their round one clash at the Atlanta Tennis Championships.
A few years ago you would have expected see this clash in the quarters or semi-finals at least and it's a measure of how injury has struck down both Haas and Ginepri that they needed wildcards to make the main draw this week.
Haas' record is well known, he was once ranked two in the world and has enjoyed the best results of his career on hard courts, making two semi-finals at the Australian Open. He's never been able to break the quarters in New York falling at that hurdle three times.
However he's now trying to rebuild his career but his comeback has not gone well so far. He lost first round at the French Open and Wimbledon and had to retire again in the second round of Newport a fortnight ago.
Ginepri himself was once ranked as high as 15 in the world and made the US Open semi-finals all the way back in 2005, losing a five setter to Andre Agassi. However he's just returned after injury kept him out for ten months since last year's US Open. His ranking has slipped to 369 and he's played a couple of challengers in the past few weeks, making one quarter-final in Winnetka.
Haas won four out of their five matches when they were at their best, generally possessing too much variety for the sometimes one-dimensional Ginepri. The American tended to lack a plan B when things were not going well, one of the reasons he never made the top ten.
If Haas is fully fit, expect him to edge this one.
