Poor weather in the Washington area caused for some rescheduling at the 2017 Citi Open. Eugenie Bouchard was expected to play against Christina McHale on Tuesday evening. However, those two players now find themselves scheduled for 1:50 pm ET on Wednesday's order of play as both searches for some momentum at this point in their seasons. Due to the change in scheduling, Bouchard will have to pull double duty as she is also scheduled for play in the women's doubles draw. Her and McHale will open Stadium Court, to be followed by Canada's Milos Raonic.
Milos Raonic versus Nicolas Mahut preview
Raonic will face Nicolas Mahut, the French veteran best remembered for losing the longest match in all of tennis history to John Isner back at Wimbledon several years ago. Mahut, now 35 years old, has typically played his best tennis on the grass-court surface. At this point in his career, he is ranked outside of the top 100 and is much more of a doubles player now.
This season he has just 10 tour-level victories (including his first-round win in Washington) against 15 defeats in singles play. He entered Washington a loser of four straight matches, almost accounting for his entire grass-court season. Mahut practically no-showed on clay as well as he went 0-4 on that surface earlier this year.
Optimism for the Frenchman will center on the fact that he did well on cement back at the 2017 Miami Open, making the 4th round of that tournament.
Raonic enjoyed a bye through the first round of the 2017 Citi Open and should be fresh at this point in his season. He has been inactive seen losing in the quarters of Wimbledon to Roger Federer.
The Canadian is a former champion in Washington and all eight of his career titles have come on the hard-court surface. Raonic and Mahut have no head-to-head series between them, but the Canadian enters the match with a 26-9 record this season. When one visits his hard-court results from earlier this season, he did well at Delray Beach before he bumped into some injury problems ahead of the final of that tournament.
Raonic was also into the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and the semifinals in Brisbane. There's no talk of the Canadian struggling with an injury right now and that should mean that he can be expected to be dangerous in the Washington draw.
Other key players scheduled for Wednesday
Other big-name players that are scheduled for action on Wednesday include Alexander Zverev, defending-champion Gael Monfils, and Nick Kyrgios. They will all round out the Stadium Court schedule of play. On Grandstand 1, Lucas Pouille is scheduled for action along with Grigor Dimitrov and Steve Johnson. In the women's draw, there's an intriguing match between Monica Puig and Ekaterina Makarova scheduled late on Grandstand 2. All matches are subject to postponement due to weather as Washington is an outdoor tournament.
