HIGH EXPECTATIONS

The brand of tennis that Richard Gasquet had played in the latter half of the last season, the expectations were high from him at the start of this season.

The experts were of the opinion that the Frenchman had finally developed himself as a player and 2014 might turn out to be the year in which he would make his way into the top 3, but, so far, Gasquet has disappointed everybody. Almost one fourth of the ongoing season is already over and he has not won any title so far.

Till this point of time last year, Gasquet had a couple of trophies under his belt.

In total, Gasquet has taken part in four events this year and barring Open Sud de France where he made it to the final, he has suffered an early exit in all the other tournaments and that’s something which was unexpected from him.

However, still, a good number of matches are to be played this season. So, Gasquet can put things in place for himself, but, he needs drastic improvement in his form.

Gasquet is currently in Indian Wells to feature in the BNP Paribas Open which is probably the most prestigious event after the Grand Slams. He will play his first match in that tournament tomorrow against Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia.

This will be the third time that Gasquet and Gabashvili will face each other. On the previous two occasions, the Russian had ended up losing and he would not want that to happen third time in a row.

If Gasquet gets knocked out early from the BNP Paribas Open as well, he would probably lose his place in top 10 in the ATP rankings.

Currently, Gasquet is the no. 9 player in the world.