34 year old Roberto Bautista Agut is currently ranked No. 22 having had a career high of No. 9 in November 2019.
This will be the sixth meeting between the two with Andy winning their first three encounters (Wimbledon round 2 2014, Munich SF 2015 and the Shanghai Masters final 2016) but losing in five sets in round 1 of the 2019 Australian Open and then in round 2 at the Qatar Open in February this year when he suffered one of the worst defeats of his career, going down 0-6, 1-6, the possible comfort for his fans being that Bautista Agut went on to lift the title for the second time, dropping only one set en route.
He was ill with covid in the spring and as a result achieved little of note until the Mallorca Championships in June where he reached the final, losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas in three. At the Generali Open in Kitzbühel, he won his eleventh Tour title by defeating Austrian wildcard Filip Misolic in straight sets. In Montreal he reached round 3 where he lost in three to Casper Ruud, the first two sets going to tiebreaks before Ruud took the third 6-4. Reaching round 3 again in Cincinnati he was beaten comfortably by Borna Coric. At the Astana Open he defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime and lucky loser Pavel Kotov, both in straight sets, to reach the quarter-finals where he lost similarly to Daniil Medvedev. He then played in Gijon and Naples, losing in round 1 to Sebastian Korda and Mackenzie McDonald respectively. In round 1 here he beat qualifier Laslo Djere 6-4, 6-1.
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