Vienna Calling, Aphex in Stockholm and Downing the vodka in Moscow

Yes, it’s that wonderful time of the year where the tennis moves indoors and the big serving indoor idiots come out to play, well it isn’t really like that since they have slowed down the courts over the years, but that is another issue I might explore later.

First tournament that will be previewed is Vienna. They have done very well with the Entry List and it’s easily the overall strongest of the events. I haven’t been to this event for quite a lot of years as I am not a huge fan of indoor tennis, but it’s a good event. It’s very easy to get to and well organised, the court surface not too quick well and some wonderful artery clogging and tasty food now onto the tennis.

There are some potentially very good 1st round results and the victorious Argentine Davis Cup team is there all four of them. I am sorry about that Choupi, but can’t have everything in life.

Ljubo vs. Calleri: Well big Ivan has a 5-0 H2H (Head to Head) record over Calleri, but Ljubo did have an arm problem in Bangkok and he is defending his title here and Calleri had the better of it in their last match in Croatia on a faster surface, but couldn’t close the deal sadly and this best of 3 format might help him. It would be good for Calleri to take this one, but the big bald Croat will get the job done here.

Acasuso vs. Roddick: The thought of making duck schnitzel out of Roddick does sound tempting to say the least. Chucho doesn’t usually play well after a break, then again he does have the knack of defeating top 10 players when he isn’t expected to do and that could easily count in his favour. The main thing in this match will be, who will return serve better, considering both of these guys aren’t exactly going to give classes on how to return serve well.

The good thing is the surface isn’t that quick and that will give Acasuso more hope than he normally would on a faster surface, just hope he can concentrate well, but his mind is on Moscow in December and any good form before that is a bonus.
As for the other things going on in Vienna, well there is Chubby Chela and Nalle in the 1st round, well that will mean that there is at least one Argentine in the 2nd round and as with Nalle, he will be a bit more with it than he normally is. One he likes playing indoors and also with a couple of solid performances he should make Shanghai and wants to be ready for the DC final.

Moya and Mucho Almagro, well at least a Spaniard is through and Almagro in theory could do quite well under a roof, but he still has a lot to learn tactically about the game, but in a few years I can see his results on other surfaces besides clay improving.

The return of Baghdatis and also Cilic and Stani isn’t a bad match and welcome back to the top 100 for Koubek, well just hope he can get rid of those horrible memories of last year losing a lead of a set and 4-0 to Lisnard, that is shameful. Speaking of Koubek he and Labadze are playing doubles and then the team with no power Gonzalez and Calleri are teaming up, watch out ballkids.


Now we move to lovely Stockholm which is a beautiful city and would be even better if they got rid of most of the Stockholmers, though there are some absolute gems to be found there.

Well it’s good to see Pim-Pim Johansson back on the main tour after all his injury problems and he wasn’t too proud to be playing Futures events in Sweden to prepare and it makes sense to give him and Vinciguerra another guy who has had bad injury problems wild cards into this event.

Vinci has drawn a qualifier and Pim Pim plays the Silver Fox who doesn’t seem to be as interested in the game these days and I wouldn’t be surprised if he retired at the end of the year and this could be a big opportunity for Pim-Pim, sure has Nadal in his section, but this court will be quicker than Madrid for sure and he is no guarantee to win this event either and these events while there are good points available, it’s more a prelude to Madrid.

Froggy Ferrer is playing Seppi again and luckily for big Seppi it’s not on clay, though with the way he is playing at the moment, it wouldn’t surprise if he only got 4 or 5 games in this match, it would be fantastic to be proven wrong on this, but this has been a difficult year.

The Swedes well the Toad is playing Chris Rochus and has a potential second round match against Björkman, but the big Toad has the game for indoors and will more than likely be the “bad guy” in a match against Jonas, they are in the Berdych section.

ToJo will be playing James Blake the highlight of the 1st round and Blakey is the defending champ and his buddy “Fisker med Mardy Fish” have done well in the past at this event. Blake can be very erratic, it depends if he decides to play with his eyes open or not.


The Kremlin Cup is the last one and I remember years ago when this had a strong field and no that was not because Rosset won it twice. As a tournament the big Kafelnikov always tried in this one and won it 5 times in a row and there have been some Russian winners of this event and the winner Andreev isn’t here defending his title.

It would far from surprising if a Russian won this event and Moscow means Vladivostok’s finest Igor Kunitsyn comes to life. He always plays well here and like a top 20 player in Russia and then bombs out badly elsewhere and I see him making the quarters again. The metamorphosis from hack to a player who beats good ones when he is in Moscow is something amazing.

Safin, Youzhny, Tursunov, PMK and Korolev give the host nation plenty of representation in this tournament and it’s the weakest of three in overall quality, but still open enough. Safin has had some difficulties when playing in Russia and I remember that he got booed by his own fans and he didn’t take it well. The whole booing issue, well people should be allowed to express their frustrations. I mean these pampered ponies want to take the credit when they play well, but they act all tender when they are criticised, sometimes it’s fair and other times not. As much as I like Safin, he will always find something to complain about, hates Hawkeye and loves Round Robin, it wouldn’t be because he’d be gaining something, nah that would be cynical to suggest that.