Monday, October 30, 2006

Andreas Seppi won 2 matches in a row and that is more important than the TMS Paris

Paris has again suffered from mass withdrawals of the big stars the arse Nadal, the bald is beautiful Ljubo and if it was likes a duck and struts around like a duck and there is a good chance that it is a duck Andy Roddick. It wouldn't surprise if Federer withdrew, but he just turn up and treat it as a training session and probably win.

Big news and more importantly big Andreas Seppi has won 2 matches in a row for the first time in some time and has qualified for the main draw and that is a big effort considering his poor form and he has a chance to win against Paul-Henri Mathieu who has been stinking more than fish left out in the sun for 4 days. In other words it's a question of who will play the least poorly will win this match.

Grosjean will take Malisse as he has done the previous 8 times and hopefully he can end Boredo's season in the next round, though I wouldn't be surprised if Boredo gets into Shanghai as an alternative.

Chucho is playing Chris Rochus and he has lost to the little gimp 3 times in a row and he should blow him away on this surface, but with him one can't tell and the winner plays the PMK and neither of them have a good record against him. PMK might be distracted as he is going to get married and I hope he has Irina sign a pre-nup agreement and he has already qualified for Shanghai, he might not care as much and this kind of thing happens at the end of the season as well.

One good thing about this week is that Ancic and Gonzalez the warrior 3 finals in a row are in the same section of the draw and there could be a straight elimination for the Shanghai spots, too bad Feña was disappointing in the Slams or he would have qualified by now and he will be very tired when he gets there if he qualifies.

Berdych is back where he made his mark and could do quite well in defending his title or he might do poorly, but it's too early for him to make a TMC and he will have plenty of chances in the future and big Safin is back at the event he loves and can't be discounted and maybe Nadal was scared that he had to play him and as for the seriousness of the last comment, most people with half a brain would know how serious I am.

Well I will get coverage this week and that is better than usual, so hope for another surprise winner in Paris.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Fondue, Vodka and Gastronomy in Lyon in the race for Shanghai

It’s another 3 tournament week and the rush for the Masters is in full force and apart from Federer and Nadal, the other 6 places are still open, but in reality those ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th on the Race should be there in Shanghai.

Basel, Lyon and St Petersburg are the venues for the shenanigans this week and they are played on carpet, which is a surface that isn’t used that much these days. Personally that is a good thing as the horror days of the serving festivals that passed off as tennis were hideous to watch.

First event to be profiled will be Basel. The hometown hero Federer is back playing his home event for the first time since 2003 due to injuries in 04 and 05. This event is special to him as he has never won it and he used to be a ballboy there and is a huge FC Basel fan. Federer has made the final twice losing to Henman and Enqvist and he is coming back from winning in Madrid and if he wins here, then he is unlikely to play in Bercy.

Enough of Federer, there are a few former champs in this field Jiri Novak who will be retiring at the end of the year and he could easily play against Federer in the quarters. Henman is another one who enjoys Basel winning it twice and making the final once, he plays the gimp Chris Rochus in the 1st round and should be an easy win, though he will play the winner of Wawrinka and Calleri which is along with del Potro and Murray are the best matches of the 1st round.

Acasuso has quarter final points to defend and he is in a pretty good section of the draw and hope he can match that result from last year. Gonzalez is back in Basel to defend his title after making his 1st TMS final in Madrid and it will be interesting to see how he backs up from this and Nalbandian another winner of this event is there and loves playing there and should be able to consolidate his place in Shanghai.

Lyon

Lyon the culinary capital of France and home to France’s most successful football team at the moment and an indoor event that has been going for a number of years, well the field isn’t as strong as it could have been with the withdrawals of Ljubo and Roddick,

Baghdatis is the only player that is capable of making Shanghai therefore leaving this event fairly open and as for Marcos he could win this event or lose in the first round. Well he is playing in his nation of residence and the tough dwarf Clement won’t be an easy opponent for him.

Mr overhyped Gasquet and Marat “my farts smell better than others” Safin is the highlight of the 1st round in name anyway. It’s good to see Marat supporting his home country tournament in St Petersburg and decided to play in Lyon, it must be hard to overcome that jet lag from St Petersburg to Paris, then again the appearance fee should just cover the difference. Got to say either this will be a huge beatdown by Safin or a close match.

The main question in Lyon this week is whether Gaudio or Seppi can win a round here.

St Petersburg

Good to see the other Russians are supporting the St Petersburg event and it wouldn’t surprise if there was another Russian victory here. The PMK has drawn Santoro and he is a heavy favourite for this and it will be interesting to see how he approaches this event. He should qualify for Shanghai, but he needs a good result in Paris, as he has done well in the optionals.

Hopefully ToJo and Pavel can get some momentum and win enough matches to make sure that they are able to qualify directly for the Aussie Open. This is getting to the end of the year and some players will be looking forward to a break and then get ready for the Australian summer.

Kunitsyn hope he can do as well here as he does in Moscow, but that has not been a strong point. The ironman Tursunov is starting to rust at the moment, but he will be ready come Davis Cup time.

Just hope young Korolev can beat Hernych, cause he could do well in this tournament and take out Boredo and maybe prevent him from qualifying for Shanghai.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Gaudio is back on tour, Tiriac is a mafioso and the 8th TMS Madrid is here

This is not going to be inspiring at all, rather just functional and there are reasons for that.

Madrid, well this is the 8th TMS event of the year and one played at a slight altitude and that isn't such a bad thing and while the population of indoor idiots love this time of year and at least the horrible servefests are virtually over and that's good.

Also good things are that the Bye is back in business and that most of the top 10 are at this event. A combination of a lack of injuries and Tiriac got some mafia hitmen to intimidate some people the players into turning up this time unlike previous years.

Tati Rascon almost qualified and somehow Youzhny didn't. Rocking Rosie with a love of Latins and shopping must be having a good time and del Potro qualified and playing the Swedish Roddick with much more personality.

Gaudio and Massu are playing and both of these guys haven't played a while and their reward is Federer in the next round, but just see what happens and it's good that they are on centre court as Safin and Acasuso will be later.

LaLo and Ginepri what a match, that will be such quality and one of the rare times I have to cheer for LaLo and that is not easy at all.

Monday, October 09, 2006

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.

Monday, October 02, 2006

No mess in Metz with fan reports from Choupi. It's about the culture and not the appearance money in Tokyo

Goodbye to the clay for the year, well there are still some clay challengers and I will get around to those later. Now the European indoor kicks off in lovely Metz and the field has been weakened sadly with many withdrawals and almost looks like the French Closed Championships, though even then it’s a lot better than the addition in 2004 and we will be getting some reports from there with one of our special reporters.

Back to Metz later, the final in Mumbai has been held over to today and got to love the organisational genius that puts an event outdoors while that’s a good thing, it isn’t the smartest thing to do it in the Indian monsoon season and it would not be surprising if the final was not played at all.

Onto Metz, well for our reporter Choupi, she had some bad luck in that most of her favourites decided to pull out of Metz, this would be Acasuso, Calleri and Chela who are spending some more time at home, before they have to trudge the European indoor circuit and they deserve some time away and it’s too bad that Metz misses out. I am lucky I am not at this event in addition to Chucho and Calleri, Horna, Seppi and Pavel withdrew as well and Luczak lost in qualifying. At the same time it’s live tennis got to see some of it and make the best of it and Santoro is still playing and his uniqueness will be lost very soon.

As for the event itself it’s very open since big Ljubo isn’t there defending his title and the fact that Ferrer and Ferrero are the top 2 seeds mean it’s an open event for sure. Robin “The Toad” Söderling is seeded 8th and has come back from Brazil and he loves playing indoors and suits his game and can see him doing well in this event.

The highlight matches of the 1st round are Santoro vs. Mathieu a battle of guile and versatility against inconsistency and erratic play. Then another battle between countrymen between Safin and Youzhny, well Youzhny is the higher seed, but Safin is an indoor monster who seems to be coming into some form and this is his favourite part of the year. Then there is Richard “The show pony” Gasquet well he is seeded 5th and my feelings for him are pretty clear, he doesn’t support the Round Robin format, has a good backhand and the Pink Panther as coach and those are the best qualities, just wait if he wins here, then all the hoopla about him starts again.

The last outdoor event for the season is the Japan Open and Mr Roger Federer has turned up this time. He likes to play in Asia and he doesn’t mind the appearance money as well, plus the Bye is there and that has to be a good thing as well.

This event looks like a prime candidate for the Round Robin format with its 48 draw and it’s funny to see Benji Becker, Björn Phau and Paul Goldstein seeded for this event, but there are some interesting characters here as well. Koubek who had a SF appearance in Mumbai plays Galvani and if he wins then Moodie and he is in the same section as Federer, well at least he should have enough time to go back home to Vienna for the indoor event. Then señor Fernando Vicente continuing his Asian adventure, he could do quite well with the women being a blonde Spaniard and those Asian girls love the exotic Western look.

Tursunov is stuck in Mumbai and has to get to Tokyo, but he loves the travelling and he will be able to handle it and he has done very well this year and he is a bit like Andreev and Davydenko in the amount of tournaments he plays. Davydenko has taken some time off and 2 weeks free from tennis is like long service leave and maybe Irina is spending too much on his credit card and he is in shock.

Youngster del Potro is up against Stop and Go Soeda the Japanese buzzsaw and hopefully he can win that and take out Captain Charisma Robby Ginepri, that guy is ranked higher than he should be, but he will go down to the LaLo level, though at least LaLo has a good serve.

The match of the first round is over and it was a bit of a fizzer sadly Edgardo “Yayo” Massa who is a bit soft around the midsection played against the big Greek Kostas Economidis. This match should have been standing room only, but Yayo was too classy for the Big Greek and won 6-1 6-3 and imagining shrieking Japanese girls chanting “Yayo” would be enough to get the wax out of my ears.

On a sidenote, bad luck to Michael Russell he couldn’t win his Challenger final against Bobby Reynolds and that is not good, though he should be back in the top 150 soon.

Look forward to the reports Choupi.