With a career-high ranking of No.126, playing a feature night match on the main tennis arena in your home town against the world’s best is a considered a rare privilege.
When wildcard John Millman meets 17-time grand slam champion Roger Federer tonight though, it will be the second such chance of an injury-interrupted career, spent battling for the most part on the Challenger circuit across the globe.
Three years ago, Millman played out of his skin to push top seed Andy Murray to three sets in the second round on Pat Rafter Arena.
Having recovered from a serious should injury, the 25-year-old earns another shot at a Brisbane International top seed; this time Federer, the player who won more matches than any of his peers last season to finish back within striking distance of a return to No.1.
“Federer, I mean, a lot of people throw it out there that he’s the greatest of all time, and he might well be,” the now-world No.153 said.
“But when you step on the court and the first point gets struck, just like I had against Murray, you don’t play someone’s reputation.
“As soon as you start playing someone’s reputation, you’ve lost before you’ve even started.”
While finishing the season without another major in his swag, Federer helped steer Switzerland to a first Davis Cup triumph and went within a whisker of upstaging Novak Djokovic in an epic five-set Wimbledon decider.
He added five titles to his tally – Basel, Shanghai, Cincinnati, Halle and Dubai – and will start a heavy favourite in the feature night match.
Returning to Pat Rafter Arena for her second night match in a row, Serbia’s No.2 seed Ana Ivanovic will square off against the 2012 Brisbane International champion, Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi, one of the hardest strikers of the ball on tour. Both players thrive on gaining the upper hand with a heavy first strike so if Kanepi’s serve is firing the way it did here three years ago, Ivanovic could find herself on the back foot. A former world No.15, Kanepi comes off an injury-riddled year, with her ranking languishing just outside the top 50. Ivanovic, in contrast, has entrenched herself back in the top 10, collecting four titles last year and beating Serena Williams in the Australian Open fourth round.
Opening proceedings on Day 5, German third seed Angelique Kerber will carry a 2-1 head-to-head record into her match with 20-year-old Ukrainian Elina Svitolina on Pat Rafter Arena. The pair split their two matches last year and both were impressive in their second-round victories. Svitolina is coming off just her second full season on tour where she successfully defended a title in Baku to finish the year at No.28. She crushed Australian wildcard Ajla Tomljanovic in her most recent match on Pat Rafter Arena but will have to play the extra ball against the more consistent Kerber, who reached four finals in 2014 for her third straight top-10 finish.
Top seed Maria Sharapova will play her first day session of 2015 and after while she burst out of the blocks to concede just one game in her previous match, it would be unwise to expect the same against Carla Suarez Navarro, a match she anticipated would be a far more physical battle.Suarez Navarro holds arguably the finest single-handed backhand on tour since Justine Henin’s retirement and while she could make things uncomfortable for the Russian, expect Sharapova to out-muscle her diminutive opponent on any short balls.
For Australian Sam Groth, backing up mentally after beating defending champion Lleyton Hewitt on Tuesday night could prove his biggest hurdle when he faces qualifier Lukasz Kubot, a player he would be expected to have the edge on. Kubot may have a Wimbledon quarterfinal to his name, but this one all boils down to whether the world’s fastest server across the net finds his range. The opportunity to reach a second straight Brisbane International quarterfinal doesn’t come much better than this for 85th-ranked Groth.