The claycourt season begins in Europe in Valencia and the former Mallorca tournament has been moved here and it will lead into my favourite 3 months of the year apart from that horrible month of grasscourt tennis.
Igor Andreev won his first title here in his second home of Valencia defeating another local boy David Ferrer, with the draw it seems Ferrer has the much easier section to navigate if he wants to make the finals again. It will be intruiging to see how they adjust to the clay and whether playing here will be an advantage before playing in Monte Carlo.
As for the draw it's wide open as PMK, Safin, Seppi and Tursunov will be coming from Davis Cup and there has been a tendency to have a let down after in the next tournament. Verdasco returns to the place where he won his only tournament so far, which is a poor return for a guy as gifted as he is. He faces Beto Martin a tough contender, but that is a slighter weaker half.
The match of the first round is between the Russian valencianos Andreev and Safin, Igor has the advantage, but whether he will win or not is debatable. In this section is Ferrero as well as Gaudio who is out of form, but if he can win a couple of matches that will be good. One first round match is of interest not for the right reasons either it's Andrei Pavel and Tomas Zib. Zib has lost 17 matches in a row and Pavel hasn't done much better, hope that changes as he needs a big run soon.
Houston
Well good luck Horna, Monaco, Behrend. Hope Koubek, Massa and Russell can make the main draw.
14 comments:
Good luck Mónaco indeed:-)) He and Horna won the doubles' title at the warm-up exhibition tournament in Houston - and he is playing the singles' final as I write this - so hope he can extend his exhibition form into the real thing.
Verdasco played quite decent and won handily, despite being down a break in both sets, let´s see if he can stay this focused and go deep in the draw.
Costa-Pashanski, it was a nice match, Albert did not bad at all, but Pashanski was too strong to overcome today, too solid for Costa. I liked what I saw of Boris, was looking forward to seeing him in action.
LaLo vs GGL, LaLo was his usual self on clay courts, ie A FUCKING JOKE. He was missing shots all around the court, his fh´s went long by meters, his bh´s were going wide/long by miles and it was another remarkable clay court tennis clinic by the the mighty LaLo. Thanks for the laughs, mate.
Gaudio vs Sluiter, nothing much to comment here, Sluiter played a good match for his standards and manage to make this one close, though I think even own Gaudio never saw himself losing that one.
Deivid
Thanks for the reports deivid and today has the potential to be a good day.
The Martin match had potential to be a tough one for Verdasco, as he is his own worst enemy at times, lets hope he can progress.
Boris loves his clay and it's good you get to see him on a surface that suits him and he fights hard and good to hear Costa wasn't disgraced.
Must have been a lot of happy proper tennis fans seeing LaLo lose and I was calling him burro and tennis impostor, but he got what deserved.
Looking forward to more reports.
LaLo and Ginepri on clay that would be a great match.
Thanks for the report Deivid.
Thank deivid
It was a good day of tennis, all 4 matches in Centre Court were worth to witness.
Entered in centre court with Davydenko leading 3-0 up a double break but Hernych started to play more solid, retrieved a lot of balls back and forced Kolya into errors and managed to nail 1st set on an awful service game by Davydenko. Both kept on that fight into the 2nd set with a very similar end, Hernych played quite well for his standards and well, we all know Davydenko can perfectly lose against a weaker rival any day.
Ferrer had some back problems and was not read to compete, I´m convinced he wouldn´t have risked to play if this wasn´t Valencia, but although he tried and fough as always it was not good enough to beat Ascione and retired after losing 1st set tiebreaker.
Almagro was a deserved winner, he only had a couple of his typical crazy games (a shocking one at 2-2 in 3rd set, up 40-0 on his serve he made 5 ues in a row to conceed the break. Luckily for him Ferrero is not the same (and I think he will never be) player he once was, his fh is not only far from being a dangerous weapon, it´s also becoming a weakness in his game, so I think it´s a worrying sign (not that I dislike this step backwards from JCF lol)
Andreev vs Safin, both played the best match for my taste so far in the tourney that could have gone probably either way, but I think Marat served better a crucial times. Andreev took the match by storm leading 3-0 and 40-15 on own serve till Safin realized he had to be more agressive and started working at Igor´s backhand (pretty solid today but not enough to dictate the point from it). Then he came back to win 1st set in TB and broke early Igor to hold his serve until he won the match. Good to see Marat getting into form.
Also saw some phases from the other matches Simon vs Vik, Sanguinetti vs Gabashvili, Fraile vs Phau. Not too much to point out from here, Gilles played well, Fraile vs Phau was a dog fight but not much quality tennis, to be honest and Gabashvili looked fine to me, he should climb up the rankings soon
Deivid
Thanks for the reports Deivid.
These are vey good reports deivid and I hope you are having a good time there in Valencia.
It seems that you enjoyed LaLo losing just a bit? Almagro, he has a good opportunity for a semi final finish here, unless he loses early and tries to qualify for Monte Carlo.
Thanks for all your work Deivid, it's been appreciated for sure.
Gaston playing Safin in the quarter finals should be an interesting match. My man Seppi has a chance to make another semi final, it just needs Volandri out of the tournament now, so vamos Superstar
Will Almagro get an SE to Monte Carlo with his SF in Valencia?
OK, there's no SE for Monte Carlo
No, Almagro will be playing in Barcelona next and he is starting to show some good form.
Seppi blew his chance big time to make another semi final. He was ahead on all stats, but not the vital W.
Safin refusing the handshake with Almagro, that got me laughing. Unsportsman behaviour for sure, then again I'm not surprised this happened in a match involving Almagro.
Somewhere in Austria, Dani Koellerer is smiling right now.
Oh and thanks for the reports, Deivid.
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