Julien Benneteau quickly showed Australian Matthew Ebden there’s no substitute for top quality matches when the Frenchman comfortably accounted for the world No.65 at the Sydney International on Monday.
Benneteau, a finalist here in 2012, had too much in the kit bag for the West Australian, winning 6-2 6-2.
Ebden largely built up his ranking over the back half of 2013 with a successful run on the Challenger Tour.
In the final four months of the year he won two tournaments and made the final of two others.
It even led his former coach Peter McNamara to say there shouldn’t be so much emphasis on young guns Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis because Ebden would be the top Australian by summer’s end.
But as Lleyton Hewitt soared to No.43 in the world off the back of his Brisbane title victory and former Australian No.1 Bernard Tomic pondered his opening round match against Spaniard Marcel Granollers here on Tuesday, that prediction seemed light years away for Ebden.
The 26-year-old said he’d been bothered by an ankle problem which he had in December and tweaked late during the first set against Benneteau.
“Going into the match I was able to practise alright over the weekend then I had a couple of little tweaks and it just started to feel really weak. I was getting a lot of pain off the heel and I just wasn’t able to push off and had no reaction with it,” he said.
“It’s pretty disappointing but I was able to play last week (in Brisbane) but maybe I just overdid it a bit soon.”
He expects to be fine for the Australian Open.
Ebden said he didn’t feel the step up to play higher-ranked players in ATP tournaments was as great as the scoreline may have suggested and believed his path through the challenger level had ultimately helped him.
“The ranking (up from No.153) and all the matches I played were extremely beneficial for match wins and confidence and ironing out things in your game,” he said.
“There’s nothing like match play and match wins – 30-40 matches I was able to play and win most of them. It was a very important period for me in my career and it gives me a good foundation.”
Benneteau enjoyed four breaks of serve and was never seriously challenged.
Widely regarded as the best player on tour not to have won an ATP title, the world No.35 has finished runner-up an agonising nine times.
In the other first round men’s match on Monday Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin beat Spain’s Pablo Andujar 6-1 6-2 and the Czech Republic’s Lukas Rosol downed Portugal’s Joao Sousa 7-6 (7-5) 4-6 7-6 (7-1).