With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged. Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today. In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today. All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer,
Federer appears to schedule a tournament like Estoril so he can build confidence playing decidedly weaker players. It may be the only tournament of the year Federer enters with a draw this weak. Federer played Doha, which is an ATP 250 event, but it typically draws stellar fields, such as Nadal and Davydenko, and, in
Today marks 3rd round action in Monte Carlo and the Spaniards are having a great day. Rafael Nadal, despite his prowess on clay, has apparently never double-bageled an opponent. He came close to doing this in his route over German, Michael Berrer, up 6-0, 4-0 in less than an hour. Berrer managed to win a
Today was a mix of first and second round action. In first round action, Victor Hanescu must be tired of seeing Stanislas Wawrinka. The two met in Casablanca last week with Wawrinka winning the title. Then, they meet in the first round of Monte Carlo. Wawrinka wins 6-2, 6-4 again. Horacio Zeballos was also deep
Andy Roddick's path to winning a Masters 1000 has been a long. He recently reached the finals of Indian Wells, but lost to Ivan Ljubicic. Roddick won Cincinnati in 2006. All his Masters 1000 titles have been in North America. He beat Tomas Berdych without dropping serve, winning 7-5, 6-4, breaking Berdych once in each
Prior to Indian Wells, if you were to ask who the favorites to win Indian Wells and Miami, few would have said Andy Roddick. Of course, fewer still would have said Ivan Ljubicic who won Indian Wells. Most were predicting Roger Federer, with Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, nearly as often, and perhaps Rafael Nadal
Well, this surely wasn't the final people were expecting. Head-to-head would have suggested a Nadal-Soderling final in a rematch of the fourth round where Nadal lost in Paris. Instead, Roddick upset Nadal and Berdych pummeled Soderling, winning 6-2, 6-2. Apparently, Berdych wasn't done winning after defeating Roger Federer. At least Fed can feel good about
The last two semifinalists were decided today. Robin Soderling again makes it to the semifinals as he did back in Indian Wells. He played a familiar opponent, Mikhail Youzhny, who he beat back in Rotterdam. Youzhny was unable to complete that match, but he did complete this one, losing 6-1, 6-4. Tomas Berdych had to
