Monday, April 19, 2010

Barcelona, the home of champions

Nadal slapped the field in Monte Carlo, huge surprise and he is likely to do the same here. That is not enjoyable at all, unless you are a Nadal fangirl but there are some potential good matches and maybe to get some reports from the field.

The likable Valencian Daniel Gimeno-Traver qualified for the main draw, unfortunately he drew Juan Monaco in the first round. The problem with DGT is in close matches, he gets too tight and can't take the opportunities when on offer. Mike Russell is back on tour after a freak problem with his ankle, he does like the clay though he hasn't been able to play many full seasons, he plays qualifier Ramos-Vinolas and hopefully then big Gonzalez in the next round.

Jan Hajek who was recently married and a different individual, who sometimes can play well and other times retire at the drop of the hat and not care, took out Starace in the first round and will play Tsonga so anything can happen there.

Seppi got wildcard Matt Dillon aka Beto Martin, and the winner will play Boredo. He has not been in great form this season and has not won two matches in a row this season, this could be time to start as any. Boredo at Barna is quite tough and he will use his fine attacking play to try and take down the "South Tyrolean sex machine".

Luczak plays that ball bashing Gulbis, who might cruise La Rambla for some ladies of the night and not be too interested in this event, if Gulbis is on then Luczak will get smoked. Peter will fight hard, but not in sparkling form at the moment. Montañes is the man in that section along with Gonzalez, Fat Albert has improved so much over time and should be an inspiration for players that an advanced age good things can happen in the tennis world.

Barcelona is the first event for Gonzo and Söderling on the Euro clay this time around, for most it takes a bit of time to get used to the section, both guys especially Söderling got a kind draw, Berdych, Ferrero and Almagro are probably the toughest ones but anything can happen in this event.

Nalle is getting better match fitness and this is good to see, he gets to play the pretty Melzer and should be able to turn around his recent loss and have a second round match with the King Oscar Hernandez who is in his home city.

Hope this can be an enjoyable tournament apart from Nadal matches and there will be some coverage on Wednesday thankfully.

14 comments:

Denys said...

No Nadal or Nalbandian now.

Anonymous said...

Zeballos vs Cuevas was pretty funny stuff really. Cebolla was killing Pablo, hitting a very clean ball and taking advantage of every short ball, putting them away with great accuracy, even from his weaker bh side. Cuevas was totally lost until Cebolla threw a stinker at 5-2 and then he messed it up in unbelievable fashion, losing several set points in the proccess and losing both service games at 5-2 and 5-4 with a couple of poor drop attempts. After getting to 5-5, Cuevas gained momentum and started to hit some better length specially off his bh side. It was long ago I didn´t see sth like that, we were sitting beside Gordo Schwank and I wished him good luck with killing Hewitt on Wednesday, he laughed at and answered he hoped I´m right. Edu played a clean match against Fognini who of course needed a set to wake up and play some tennis. 2nd set was more competitive but Schwank was playing too solid for Mr. Idon´tgiveafuckini.

De Bakker killed Falla who was really really poor tbh. But it was good to see in flesh Thiemo finally playing this season some of the tennis I was waiting him to produce since a few years ago.

I liked what I saw from this kid Krajinovic. Was surprised at his fighting spirit, the patience and consistency given his age. Very good backhand, good footwork and a good game overall. Of course Chela was too tough for him at this stage of his development as a player but he will have a good career I´m sure

I was not too interested in the other matches to be honest, Hajek schooled a poor Potito, Marcel bores me to death but I saw some of his match just to see Kubot self destructing error after error, Nieminen kept up his shitty form, and Bellucci was far from impressive, Hernández made a mess out of his match against a rival who was no match for him on clay even in his current poor form, I heard Almagro killed Ventura in centre court, and Riba was his usual crap and limited self, I never understood the hype around this idiot, really, he has developed fuck all in last years.

Deivid

Choupi said...

Thanks Deivid for your reports. Great read indeed. Sure you're having a good time.

Sigurd Sigurdsson said...

Thanks for the reports Deivid, loving them very detailed which is always a good thing. I hope big Edu can take out Hewitt.

Excellent win for Gimeno-Traver, though Monaco is allegedly injured. How did DGT play overall? Did you see any of the Russell match?

Anonymous said...

Hi Deivid, thanks for the comments.
Haha as for the good things both Nadull and Boredo are out.

Nathii

Anonymous said...

Although Chardy was awful against Golubev in MC, tennis is about match-ups and he´s the kind of guy Montañes hates to play against, big serves and flat strokes taking time away from his shots were good enough to beat him quite easily.

Melzer kept up with his sharp form since that 1st title last year, although Lapentti only has fighting spirit these days.

Dani played one of the best sets I´ve ever seen from him in 1st set against Pico, 2nd was rubbish and 3rd Mónaco was Santa Claus, played atrocious tennis and Dani didn´t even need to serve out the match as Mónaco double faulted it away. Match against De Bakker should be fun.

Gulbis served and hit too big for Luczak, Kuku had too much diarrhea to outlast Beto, Robredo had too much pain in his back to let Simone self destruct after his choke in the 1st set TB, Ilhan was too soft to win more than 1 set against a poor Mr. ComeOn, Cuevas showed yesterday´s win against Cebolla was only a tease and due to Zeballos´ brainfart and LaLo can fuck off with that win by retirement.

Istomin, Zverev and Stak all 3 played much better than I thought they would tbh and best tennis of the day goes to Mucho, Soderling and Chela. Almagro played a fantastic match and Soderling vs Chela was the best one we´ve seen this week, although most part of 2nd set we were in the hotel as Inter vs Barça was a must watch.

Deivid

Anonymous said...

Forgot about Russell:

I was at Russell match during the first set. He started pretty well, storming into a 4-1 lead, making only a couple of errors in the process. But Ramos is a tough nut to crack on clay if you rush it or you´re not sharp enough and after a couple of service games with 6 or 7 ue, set was over, Albert was pumped up, crowd as well and I left the court bc Russell was never going to recover after that

Deivid

Marc said...

Lots of players withdrawing it's not good for the event.

I heard Luczak had to drive all the way to Barcelona from Stockholm, he did quite well considering all this. At the same time Gulbis has the game that troubles.

Istomin hope he can defeat LaLo and Russell got outplayed at least his ankle is fine.

Unknown said...

Deivid, how was the Gonzo match? Looked like crazy stuff just following the scoreboard...

Anonymous said...

Schwank killed Hewitt as we told him to, started a bit nervous but once he found his range he had too much for this version of Lleyton to handle. He should beat Navarro as long as he keeps his focus like this.

Dani vs Thiemo was the same old story with Gimeno, hard fought set in which Dani was the better player to me, but Thiemo served well and managed to reach the tie breaker. At 5-5 in the shootout, a backhand long and an easy fh from midcourt into the net decided the match.

Tsonga was way too good for Hajek, Gulbis and the umpire were too strong for Chardy (at 3-4 in 1st set Chardy went up 15-0, but this wanker marked 0-15, then Gulbis won the following point, ump said love thirty, Chardy had a beef with him, Gulbis said nth, call stood, Ernests broke at 15 and game over. Ofc Chardy must have told the ump sth like "shake my dick instead of my hand" when refusing to give him a handshake after the match.

Hdez Melzer had a lot of drama, but I get bored with Oscar and just saw some phases of this crazy rollercoaster, Hdez up 5-2 in 1st set, Melzer manage to get into a tiebreaker, he was up there 40 when Oscar won 7 points in a row. Melzer was the better player in the 2nd set and Oscar double faulted away a couple of his service games there, and didn´t see the third, but I know Oscar choked it away in style, he didn´t conceed a single point on own serve in that 3rd set, and when he was up 5-4 30-0 he decided he had enough and lost the match. Funny stuff.

Albert Ramos got the better of González and got a fantastic win for him. He has a fh that it was clear would give Gonzo trouble, but he had to do much more than that to win and he did it, he was smart, played brave when needed (specially when serving out the first set) and stayed strong after that 2nd set tiebreaker to take advantage of Gonzo´s medical timeout in the third and closed it out with not much trouble. Gulbis should serve and hit too big for him surely but it would be fun if Ernest the cheater has one of those days when he plays baseball and Albert frustrates the hell out of him. 2 things on his favour are the crowd behind him and that he´s a smart lad, unlike Gulbis who´s just a careless donkey as we all know.

No more reports from my side, as we´re heading back to Madrid right now hoping tonight we have of those big European nights we´ve sorely missed during so many years

Deivid

Merton said...

Thank you for the detailed reports Deivid, great read as always.

fab said...

yep, thanks for the reports, it's appreciated.

Martine said...

Wow Deivid, thanks for the reports! Great read!

Martine

Disquieting Muse said...

really enjoyable read, Deivid.

too bad you missed Gasquet's matches. overlapping matches cause schedule conflicts, i guess, and you in crunch mode.