August 11th, 2009 by Peter Bevan

Andy Murray will start his Rogers Cup campaign in Montreal later today against Jeremy Chardy

Andy Murray returns to action since Wimbledon for the second round of the Montreal Rogers Cup, an ATP 1000 Masters event with 1000 ATP points up for grabs.

Andy Murray has recently been preparing for the Rogers Cup in the heat of Miami and after receiving a bye in the first round, will face Jeremy Chardy in the second round scheduled to play later today.

The Rogers Cup also sees the return of Rafael Nadal, who missed the entire Wimbledon Grand Slam earlier this year due to tendinitis in his knees. His return got off to a good start with a doubles win with partner Francisco Roig against Novak Djokovic and partner Dusan Vemic.

All the top names in men’s tennis are competing in the Montreal Rogers Cup in preparation for the final Grand Slam of the season: the US Open.

British number one Andy Murray is in the same half of the draw as the world number one Roger Federer, and so if the two were to meet it would be at the semi-final stage.

World number two Rafael Nadal is in the same half of the draw as the number four seed Novak Djokovic, number six seed Andy Roddick, and the recent Washington Legg Mason Classic champion Juan Martin Del Potro.

Rafael Nadal has admitted that retaining the Montreal Rogers Cup title was not on the cards because of his lack of practice, and that his main focus was to work hard and try not to suffer any more injury setbacks. He says that he was aware he was going to Montreal to lose, and that winning was almost impossible.

Also suffering from lack of match practice was Roger Federer, who is returning to action since the birth of his twin daughters three weeks ago.

As well as Andy Murray, other top seeds scheduled to play later today include Roger Federer against Frederic Niemeyer, Novak Djokovic takes on Peter Polansky, and the world number eight Nikolay Davydenko against Paul-Henri Mathieu.

So far at the Montreal Rogers Cup, the first shock result was the 14th seed Marin Cilic losing to Mikhail Youzhny 4-6, 7-6, 6-1 despite winning the first set.

Players on the cusp of qualifying for the end-of-year Barclays ATP World Tour Finals include 9th seed Gilles Simon, 10th seed Fernando Gonzalez and 11th seed Fernando Verdasco.

Only the top eight players can compete at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and so they hope to play as well as possible at the Montreal Rogers Cup to gain as many ATP points as possible for a place in the top eight.

The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals takes place at the London O2 Arena from November 22. ATP World Tour Finals tickets are available to compare at tixdaq.com