Brazil, Rotterdam and Memphis Tournaments

This is my first attempt at this. So after this post, it would be appreciated that all comments relating to any of tournaments kept in the comments thread and hopefully it can engage in a good discussion.

First of all congratulations to Arnaud Clement, Carlos Moya and the young Scot Andy Murray for winning their respective tournaments and especially for Murray as it's his first ever tournament win and won't be his last and now onto the this weeks tournaments.

Costa do Sauipe in Brazil is the first place that will be previewed. Carlos Moya has decided to miss this tournament after his win in Buenos Aires and he is probably still partying on the beach or still going in the clubs and that's not a bad thing.

Defending champion Nadal is not back in the sun of Brazil this year and Gaston Gaudio is the number 1 seed here after his compatriots Nalle and Coria withdrew from the tournament and among the other withdrawals are the form horse Acasuso who needed a break to refresh his batteries after playing a lot of tennis recently and Calleri who has had some problems in Brazil before, but seemed to have some problems with his groin in the Volandri match, though his brain probaly cramped as well.

Hopefully this tournament sees a successful return of Gustavo Kuerten the greatest player ever to come out of Brazil and arguably South America, he has had two false starts so far pulling out of Vina del Mar and Buenos Aires. I just hope he can return to the tour and it would be great for the Brazilian people to be able to see him again. He has drawn a local wildcard and has a good opportunity to make the second round.

The draw isn't lopsided clearly as one side isn't any stronger than the other. Gaudio who didn't play in Buenos Aires cause of a financial dispute loses his points from last year, but with a win here he'd get them back and has drawn a qualifier. Just hope for him the qualifier isn't the young talent from Argentina Juan Martin del Potro who has a very big future ahead of him and is only 17 and is doing well at the moment.

For Gaston there is a potential second round match with his closest friend on tour Mariano Zabaleta who have known each other since they were kids and Zabaleta was part of the generation that the Argentine federation didn't think would amount to match. Mariano has had the gastro virus which forced him out of Buenos Aires and he has had a lot of bad luck recently with injuries after coming into form last year during Monte Carlo and the second half of the year besides Kizbuhel was disappointing for him. He has a winnable match against Sabau and hopefully he can get back on track in his career.

Other matches in the 1st round that are of interest to myself though maybe not to others.

Behrend vs Pashanski : The big Brazilian playing for Germany is in his hometown against the Serbian challenger king Pashanski. Both of these guys lost to Volandri last week and Behrend was up a set and 3-0 in the second with 2 breaks and managed to find a way to lose this match, whereas Pashanski repeated his quarter final performance last week and lost handily to Volandri. This one could be close and would fancy either to beat Cheech Marin or Mello Yellow.

Horna vs Martin: As per usual there are usually matches where a fan likes both players and would like them both to progress, but that won't happen. At the same time there tends be a whole collection of shit players or players that piss you off all grouped together.

Beto has just come back to tennis after the sudden death of his mother and there could be a period of inconsistency with his tennis as he comes to terms with the death. Lucho on the other hand is inconsistent and should be ranked better than he is, but he is so up and down, a good performance in Australia followed by a donkey performance in Chile and he needs some good results as they both do. The last time they met on clay Beto lost only 4 games.

Saretta vs Ferrero and Massu vs Daniel Part 3: Now this is time for revenge Flavio as he is now the hometown boy and maybe he might learn something from the 3 set loss last time, but it's not an easy match up for him it seems. Hopefully Oncins has done some work with Flavio and got him to work a bit harder than before.

Nico Massu and Marcos Daniel are meeting for the 3rd week in a row and in Acapulco lets make it 4. This time Daniel will have the Brazilian public behind him and he might lift to a victory over Massu, but I think Massu's extra class will get him over the line again. El Vampiro (The Vampire) is a player who needs a lot of matches to get back into form and could do very well in the bottom half of the draw.

Vicente is against Berlocq, all I can say is vinga Vicente here is a chance for a win in the main draw. Well since the warrior Felix Mantilla is still injured, it's up to Vicente to provide me with entertainment and maybe pull off the odd good result, though he doesn't win 2 in a row very often these days.

Nicolas Almagro vs Dani Koellerer: Normally a qualifying match wouldn't get a write up, but this one has good potential for some funny shenanigans. Nico Almagro as some have called him is a poor mans "Fernando Gonzalez". He does have a lot of talent and shotmaking ability, but at the same time he can play some classic meathead tennis and loses some very poor matches.

Koellerer is one guy if you get an opportunity to see play, then do it. This guy is one of the most hated players on the circuit and is always getting fined and having sponsors paying the fines for him. The guy does everything bullies ball kids, throws his racquet, taunts the officials with regularity and he heckles his opponents as well. I mean he got punched by Luzzi another idiot and that has to say something about him. He is a bit like a bad car crash, in the way it's not best to look at it, but one can't help it. He is so bad they are trying to kick him off the tour, though that is a bit drastic. A straitjacket fit could be an option.

The rest of qualifiers left have some interesting names. Albert Portas the bolter that won Hamburg as a qualifier and nothing else since is famous for his drop shots and the fact he likes the movie "Titanic". It's always a worry if a man likes Titanic and he plays del Potro, so hope the youngster is up for the challenge.

Rotterdam

This is usually one of the strongest events outside of the Slams and the Masters event, but this time around the tournament has been hit with a huge amount of withdrawals and it's not good for Richard Krajicek the tournament director who has done a good job with the tournament.

It's time for some fans as a tennis friend Emilita calls them not to be one dimensional tennis fans or the other term "star fuckers". Just cause some stars aren't playing doesn't mean the tournament will be shit. More people need to use some initiative and watch the game and it's very enjoyable to see players before they become stars.

This is the list of players that have pulled out Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Richard Gasquet, Ivan Ljubicic Dominik Hrbaty, Gael Monfils, Marat Safin, Peter Wessels, Martin Verkerk, Sjeng Schalken, Sebastian Grosjean and Marcos Baghdatis. That is a very extensive list and it would be expected more at the end of the season than the start, but among the injuries and the tiredness this week. There will be a remarkable recovery by Dubai with all the $$$ on offer there and also it's a better preparation for the hardcourt events in Indian Wells and Miami.

As for the tournament itself, it is very open now with all the withdrawals and both Federer and Ljubicic the winner and finalist aren't playing. It's never easy predicting what the immensly talented young Czech Tomas Berdych will do. In theory he should be able to waltz through this section of ther draw, but he could lose just as easily as well. Indoors is the best for his game, as the elements like the sun and wind are taken away, but he does have some issues with consistency not everyone can be super consistent like Nadal.

Also in the top half of the draw is the Marseille finalist Mario Ancic. He will play well when it doesn't count and he is playing the blogger favourite Nieminen who apart from his Stockholm final years ago has not done well indoors. This is probably the best match of the top half in the first round and there are some players like Dent and Melzer who are struggling at the moment, but can have a good run from nowhere, then there is Srichaphan one of the maestros of brainless hitting, but looks good when it goes in.

The bottom half looks stronger and has some intriguing first round matches in this section. The all French battle between Paul Henri Mathieu and Fabrice Santoro, this one I think will be ugly with Santoro winning as it seems Paulo apart from choking has problems playing his fellow countrymen and Fabrice has shown some good form in singles and will be looking to take some positives from losing a tough matches against Clement in Marseille.

Henman and Thomas Johansson a first round match seems a bit rude especially with some of what's on offer as first round matches and as the saying goes it's the luck of the draw. I hope Henman's back is getting better and although far from a fan, it's not good to see players that are injured irrespective of what ranking. Henman gets a hard time from the British press, in reality he has done as well as he could with the game he has and the ludicrous pressure that he is under to win Wimbledon.

Blogger favourite Andreas Seppi is up against Nole Djokovic in the first round and as much as I would like Seppi to win, it would not be a surprise if he doesn't manage to do so as playing indoors is not his strength, but Djokovic has a lot of talent and has not played too much which is a good thing.

Well this is not the field that they expected in Rotterdam, but there will be some good tennis played there for sure, just too many people have narrow visions when it comes to tennis.


Memphis

The home of Elvis Presley and usually the weakest of the ISG events, which for those who don't know are the level of events in between the The Masters Events and the IS events. For once the field in Memphis is reasonable and compares favourably with Rotterdam this time around.

Big Dane Kenneth Carlsen is the defending titleholder in this event and interestingly is the only one of the three titleholders that is back trying to defend their title and in a twist Max Mirnyi the man he beat in the final is a possible second round opponent.

American Mickey Mouse title king Andy Roddick needs a tournament win and this is the environment where he thrives winning smaller tournaments in the US where the competition isn't as strong as other events, in recent times this has not been as fruitful as before, but he is not a player to be written off. He plays his best friend and bitch Mardy Fish in the 1st round, who is coming back from injuries and shouldn't be a serious test for the Duck. Wayne Arthurs is a potential danger if he serves well, what I am saying that is Arthurs game the serve, the only difference between he and Roddick is that Roddick has a very good hardcourt forehand.

Also in the top half Ginepri vs Tursunov match could be interesting as Ginepri or as he is known to some people Gineprick hasn't been in form and Tursunov is hilariously erratic and achieved the notable feat of losing serve to Arthurs 4 times in a 3 set match, something not to be proud of. As long as big Dim can get through the year injury free that will be a bonus and just hope both of these players don't have a bad day, as it could get very ugly, though not as ugly as the WTA.

There are some players here who need to get on track like Pavel who can't seem to string 2 wins together at the moment and Luczak who has got in the draw as a Lucky Loser and plays Carlsen, it will be difficult for Peter as he is not at his best on this surface, but at the same time it's a winnable match for him.

Bjørkman and Kiefer should be a close match as they have played 11 times and Kiefer leads 6-5 and he leads 5-3 on the hardcourts. Jonas has saved his singles career with that win in Vietnam last year and maybe he can play for a few more years in singles, it would be good to see Jonas to continue for a little while.

The winner will play the winner of Murray and Schuettler and that looks like Murray at the moment. He is in the great position of nothing to defend in the way of points until Wimbledon and he has the capabilities of going quite high in the rankings in a short time, doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a good thing and the only reason he is succeeded so far was cause he was in Spain and not in the UK for his important development years.