After Toronto, the focus now shifts to Cincinnati for the second and final Masters 1000 hard-court event this summer. The field is very similar to Toronto, but the results could be quite different.

Buy:

Steve Johnson

Johnson has had a breakthrough season and has consistently been able to reach the quarterfinal stage of 250-level tournaments. Now he will seek to improve his success at the more challenging 1000 level. As a wild card in Cincinnati, he is slated to face a qualifier and then the winner of Ivan Dodig/Ernests Gulbis. With Gulbis out of form, and Dodig perhaps fatigued from a long week in Toronto, Johnson has an excellent chance at reaching the third round and most likely setting up a meeting with Milos Raonic, who dispatched him in the Washington quarterfinals.

Raonic also may be worn out from consecutive long weeks, however, and Johnson could get some revenge and reach the quarterfinals. There he would again draw a beatable opponent, perhaps the slumping Tomas Berdych. This is a great opportunity for Johnson to establish himself as a player who can compete at the highest level.

Julien Benneteau

Another unseeded player with a chance to earn himself a good number of ranking points this week is the veteran Frenchman Julien Benneteau. He reached the third round in Toronto with quality wins over Ernests Gulbis and Lleyton Hewitt in straight sets, before bowing out to Raonic in three sets. Benneteau opens against the possibly injured Richard Gasquet, his countryman, and then would face Guillermo Garcia-Lopez or a qualifier.

The Frenchman has a chance to reach the third round for the second week in a row. With a possibly fatigued Grigor Dimitrov most likely awaiting him at that stage, it is again a match where Benneteau, if he plays well, could prevail and get himself to the quarterfinals against most likely Stan Wawrinka or Marin Cilic.

Tommy Robredo

Robredo had a quality third-round showing in Toronto with wins over Philipp Kohlschreiber and Gilles Simon before falling to Dimitrov in three sets, and he has a chance to equal that result in Cincinnati. He will need to get past the improved Jack Sock, who played relatively well in Toronto but came up short against Raonic in a heartbreaking match. Should he do so, Sam Querrey or Alejandro Falla would be an underdog against the veteran Spaniard, and he could very well find himself in the third round against Novak Djokovic, who one would think would be eager to get past his disappointing early loss in Toronto.

Gael Monfils

Monfils gave Djokovic a high-pressure contest in Toronto, and his game looked good overall. More importantly, he looked healthy in action last week. Now with Federico Delbonis, a clay-courter, and Martin Klizan or Roberto Bautista Agut as his slated first two opponents, Monfils has to be the favorite to reach the third round and set up a meeting with Roger Federer, who will be coming off the Toronto final and may be tired.

Monfils gave Djokovic everything he could handle, and the playful Frenchman surely would like to try to do a little better against Federer. Monfils won their last meeting, a three-setter in Shanghai on hard courts last year, and he is overall 2-6 against the former No. 1. Federer had some tight contests in Toronto, despite his excellent result, so he could be vulnerable if his form dips in Cincinnati.

Marin Cilic

Cilic has been a player in good form on a consistent basis, and he’s been on the buy side of stock watch a lot this season. Again this week, he has a great opportunity at a deep run, and he came close in Toronto, losing a tight match against Federer in three sets. Cilic will get the in-form but likely fatigued Feliciano Lopez in a competitive round 1 contest, and he has a 2-2 record against the Spaniard. Should he prevail, he will face Fernando Verdasco or Marcel Granollers, neither of whom is in particularly strong form at the moment. He then might eye a possible third-round meeting with a struggling Wawrinka.

Wawrinka presents a better opportunity as an upset than Federer did for Cilic to advance to the quarterfinals. Cilic has defeated him twice on a hard court, so this tournament may be the Masters 1000 breakthrough he has been seeking with a winnable potential quarterfinal also a possibility.

Sell:

Richard Gasquet

Gasquet gave Andy Murray a walkover with an abdominal strain in Toronto, and that is why he’s on the sell list this week. The Frenchman has been playing better as of late, but we’ve seen previously this season how much injuries can hamper his game and worsen his results. His first-round opponent Benneteau is talented enough to pounce if Gasquet is below his usual level. Injuries are hard to predict, and Gasquet is hard to predict as a player, but he’s probably not full of confidence going into this tournament.

John Isner

John Isner doesn’t appear to be injured, but he comes into Cincinnati in poor form and under the pressure of defending his run to the finals last season, meaning an early loss would be considerably damaging to his ranking. His first match will be against Kevin Anderson, a quarterfinalist and very nearly semifinalist in Toronto, who plays almost exactly the same style as the American. They have met several times on hard courts, their last meeting coming in July 2013 in Atlanta. Isner has a slight edge in their history, but they play a lot of tiebreaks, and Anderson has won enough meetings (four in total) to demonstrate he can beat Isner.

Anderson had a painful choke against Dimitrov in the Toronto quarterfinals, throwing away multiple match points to lose in a third-set tiebreak on a double fault, so his mentality could be all over the place going into the match. Should he be able to compose himself, form would seem to favor him, since he had a top-five win over Wawrinka in Toronto. Should Isner survive, however, one should expect Andy Murray to take him out in round 3. 

Philipp Kohlschreiber

Kohlschreiber is carrying a three-match losing streak into Cincinnati, and he has had a decline in form this season overall. He also faces a round 1 opponent in Jeremy Chardy who has beaten him twice without dropping a set. Chardy lost in round 2 of Toronto to eventual finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a competitive contest, so the Frenchman with the big forehand should upset the German with the precise one-handed backhand. Should Kohlschreiber win that match, on the other hand, David Ferrer should dispatch him in round 2.

Ernests Gulbis

Gulbis hasn’t had a good result since his shocking run to the French Open semifinals, and he appears to be going through a summer malaise. He lost to Benneteau in Toronto and also has losses to journeymen Sergiy Stakhovsky and Kenny De Schepper after the French Open. These are noticeably poor results for a top-15 player, and his first-round opponent in Cincinnati is Ivan Dodig, who is 2-0 against Gulbis in his career without dropping a set.

 Dodig may be fatigued from a long week in Toronto, where he made the doubles final, but the Croat, who returned to tournament tennis for the first time since the French Open, had a great post-injury run to the third round with wins over Isner and Andreas Seppi before losing in three sets to Ferrer. His big serve and other skills seem to be tuning up fast. Look for Dodig to give Gulbis trouble, and if he is fresh enough, to dispatch him early in a tournament yet again.

Stan Wawrinka

As a top-four seed, Wawrinka has struggled to reach and go beyond the quarterfinals in Masters events this season. He dazzled in winning Monte Carlo but had exits in the fourth round or earlier in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, and also Toronto, where he fell to Kevin Anderson in round 2. Before that, he was pushed to the brink in a third-set tiebreak against his friend Benoit Paire, who has been struggling all season.

In short, Stan has a pattern of underachieving in the Masters events. He is likely to face Ivo Karlovic first, and he has a positive career record and a win this year over the big serving Dr. Ivo. But Karlovic is still always a dangerous opponent who can pull off upsets purely by putting pressure on his opponents to hold their own serve.  Wawrinka may survive Karlovic, but Cilic or even Verdasco or Lopez should knock him out in another earlier than expected exit for the Swiss star.