Where's the beef in Montevideo

Montevideo has faded over time and Uruguayan tennis hasn't been the same since the days of the legendary Marcelo Fillipini and Diego Perez, but Pablo Cuevas is trying. Uruguay is more known for its beef and it's footballers usually nasty defenders and the odd skilful forward. The Copa Petrobras series has moved on here which as the name suggests is supported by a Brazilian oil company and they run these South American challengers.

Now the 1st round has been completed and saw the return of Roitman who is defending some points this time around, also Zabaleta and Horna coming back from injuries to try and gain some confidence before the 2008 season starts.

Too bad Yayo Massa failed to qualify for this event, but at least he will get in directly in Asuncion and should get a WC to Buenos Aires. Andre Ghem the Brazilian gaucho and one of the best friends of Tomas Ugo Behrend who has sadly decided to retire finally won a MD match after a lot of recent close losses he defeated the "Maxi Lopez" lookalike in a 3rd set tiebreaker and now plays Roitman in the 2nd round. Ghem has had a difficult year, just hope he can pull off the upset here and try and get some momentum for next season. They say winning is a habit, which it is, so is losing and more matches lost in a row, the harder it becomes to win.

Lucho made a good comeback to win 6-2 6-2 over Maxi Gonzalez the Mexican who had been in good form in the year, but has tapered lately and now he plays Villagran in the next round who was the beneficiary of a retirement by Puerta (The Door) at 4-4 in the 1st set. Maybe "The Door" was afraid of Lucho and decided to retirement was the best option for him. He is in a good section and would play the winner of Cuevas and the midget from Tandil Junquiera who upset Brzezicki in 3 sets. I need Brzezicki and Guzman to win some matches, so at least one of them makes the MD at the Aus Open.

Zabaleta lost his comeback match to the champ from last week Devilder in straight sets, just hope that he is healthy that is more important than results at the moment. The bottom half lost both seeds Berlocq lost to the Portuguese Federico "Gilberto" Gil and Hartfield lost to the youngster Belucci from Brazil who seems to have a good future. This event does have more interest for me than Bercy.