Mikhail Youzhny gets his Swiss Open campaign underway on Wednesday against Denis Istomin.
Wins have been hard to come by recently for Istomin so the Uzbek will have been delighted with his first round triumph over qualifier Martin Fischer. It was not pretty but Istomin just about held his nerve, staving off 12 out of 16 break points to come through 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.
Youzhny will fancy his chances of another deep run this week after his exploits in Hamburg which saw him make the last four, losing to eventual champion Gilles Simon, a man who’s in a bit of a hurry to get back to the top ten.
Youzhny did not excel himself in Gstaad last year, reaching the quarters in fairly unconvincing fashion before going down in three sets to a qualifier.
He will be eager to improve on that this year and the path to the semi-finals looks fairly clear. He could face Fernando Verdasco at that stage.
Istomin won their only previous match courtesy of a retirement when they met two years ago in St Petersburg but look for Youzhny to set the record straight today.
