WIMBLEDON -- It must feel like groundhog day for Kevin Anderson.
South Africa's No. 8 seed began his Wimbledon campaign with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over Norbert Gombos on Monday to set up a second-round clash against Italy's Andreas Seppi, who he faced at the same stage of last year's championships.
Anderson, 32, won in straight sets that day and is hoping for a repeat performance when the pair clash Wednesday.
"He's [Seppi] definitely one of the veterans of the tour," Anderson said in press after beating Slovakian Gombos. "He's a very clean ball striker, very experienced. I played a great match against him last year, so I'd love to bring out that same sort of form on Wednesday.
"But it's always different. Conditions could be different. You have to be prepared for anything. But I have played him before. I have seen him playing, you know, many, many times, so my next match at least I'll know what to expect from my opponent."
Despite suffering a first-round exit to Leonardo Mayer at the Queen's Club last week, Anderson is confident he can make big strides in London.
The world No. 8 is hoping to advance past the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time in his career and will be buoyed by a good run at last month's French Open, where he reached the round of 16 in Paris before eventually falling to Argentina's Diego Schwartzman.
"It's always tough with tennis," said Anderson. "I played a great French Open, played a great match against Schwartzman, especially those first two sets and 95 percent of the third set and 95 percent of the fourth set, and just came up a little bit short.
"It's easy to get discouraged and go off track, but, you know, it was a tough loss, learned as much as I could from it. First match on grass it's always a little bit tricky. Again, another close match. I have had a few of them this year -- 7-6 in the third against Mayer. Would have loved to get a few more grass-court matches. That's how it goes.
"Coming in today, really excited about playing here at Wimbledon. I feel like I'm playing good tennis. Hopefully looking forward to a good couple weeks here."