New York: India's top men's singles player Somdev Devvarman plays Britain's world No. 4 Andy Murray, while the country's number one woman player Sania Mirza will take on Israeli Shahar Peer in the first round of the US Open beginning Monday.
Somdev, ranked 63rd, will be playing Murray for the first time in his career and it may be too much to expect him to put it across the Scot. However, the Indian will not be easy meat for Murray, more so on his favourite hard court surface.
"You get what you get from the draw but it's going to be very tough," Devvarman said after seeing the draw on Thursday, "because Murray is one of the greatest returners in the game."
Somdev, 26, lost to some of the top-10 players in the world this year, including Spaniard Rafael Nadal, Swiss Roger Federer, Spain's David Ferrer and American Mardy Fish. He beat far higher-ranked players than him like Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia), Milos Raonic (Canada), Tommy Robredo (Spain) and Xavier Malisse (Belgium).
The Indian came close to winning his first Tour title at the South African Open, but was beaten in the final by home favourite Kevin Anderson over three sets.
Sania, ranked 63, has had a difficult time in the run-up to Flushing Meadows, failing to get past her first-round matches and failing to qualify in top-graded tournaments. This year she has won only nine matches in 20 tournaments, four of these in the last one month, losing most of the times to players who she could have beaten.
Significantly, however, she beat the 24th-ranked Peer when they met the last time 6-0, 6-1 three weeks ago.
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