Easy going: I mentioned earlier in the week that the Recife challenger has a particularly weak field, with a cut over 400 and a top seed ranked #147. As you might expect, most of the seeds are progressing easily–four of the top five are in the quarters.
It’s a mess at the top of the draw, though. No one has benefited more than Brazilian wild card Tiago Fernandes. Fernandes, ranked #509, drew German qualifier Lars Uebel. Uebel is unranked, though he did beat two ranked players to get through qualifying. But Uebel withdrew, leaving Fernandes to face lucky loser Tiago Lopes, ranked #534.
In the second round, Fernandes faced fellow local wild card Bruno Sant’Anna, another man without a ranking point to his name. Now, in the quarters, he’ll face Guilherme Clezar, yet another Brailizian WC, ranked #724 in the world. Clezar faced Marco Chiudinelli in the first round, winning a set before the Swiss retired. Whichever of the wild cards wins today will receive the same number of points as the semifinalists in Monza, where just about everyone in the draw is superior to anyone left in Recife.
Colombia: Also in South America, the Pereira challenger is generating some interesting results. I mentioned yesterday the success of local wild card Eduardo Struvay. Another major upset in the second round came when young Argentine Facundo Bagnis knocked out Colombian top seed Alejandro Falla. Bagnis won a challenger event last week and will ascend to at least #178 with this week’s result.
Today, Bagnis faces 5th-seeded Italian Paolo Lorenzi. The oddsmakers have noticed the Argentine’s hot streak and give him about a 60% chance of advancing to the semis.
ATP: Finishing off the second round in Houston yesterday, all four matches went to the seeded player. Pablo Cuevas didn’t mess around in getting past James Blake–he won 84% of service points, allowing the American only two break chances.
Cuevas’s opponent today is Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, winner of the latest ugly match in Houston. GGL landed only 38% of his first serves, yet somehow allowed Somdev Devvarman only two break chances. Devvarman converted both, but it wasn’t enough, as Garcia-Lopez broke five times, eventually winning 6-4 6-1.
The other winners yesterday were Kei Nishikori and Mardy Fish, both of whom advanced in straight sets, and will face each other today. Given some of the serving performances in Houston, you have to wonder if there’s a strobe light just off center court. In losing to Fish, Albert Ramos made only 44% of first serves; at least Nishikori and his opponent, Igor Andreev, were both comfortably above 60%.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Monte Carlo (more important: televised matches from Monte Carlo) can’t arrive soon enough!
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