{"id":260,"date":"2011-04-12T13:13:23","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T13:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=260"},"modified":"2011-04-12T13:13:23","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T13:13:23","slug":"tuesday-topspin-federer-cruising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/12\/tuesday-topspin-federer-cruising\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Topspin: Federer Cruising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kohl down: <\/em>A couple of days ago, I suggested that Roger Federer<\/strong> might have his hands full with a second-round matchup against Philipp Kohlschreiber<\/strong>. \u00a0While Kohlschreiber looked great in Indian Wells, knocking out Robin Soderling<\/strong> and nearly upsetting Juan Martin del Potro<\/strong>, he didn’t do much to justify my optimism this week. \u00a0He just barely made it past Andrey Golubev<\/strong>, and earlier today, lost to Federer, winning only three games and 36% of total points.<\/p>\n

Federer has gotten a head start on the pack, becoming the first man into the round of 16, and one of only two of the top eight seeds in action today. \u00a0(The other is Tomas Berdych<\/strong>, who will take on Olivier Rochus<\/strong> later.) \u00a0Federer’s section of the draw is distinctly unchallenging; his likely next opponent is Marin Cilic<\/strong>, and after that, he’s seeded to play Jurgen Melzer<\/strong> (or, very possibly Nicholas Almagro<\/strong>). \u00a0If he reaches the semifinal, we could be treated to an interesting contrast of clay-court styles, as his probable opponent is either David Ferrer<\/strong> or Fernando Verdasco<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Sets up<\/em>: There haven’t been a lot of upsets so far in the first round, but a slew of matches have gotten interesting. \u00a0Among yesterday’s 13 first-rounders, 7 went to a deciding set. \u00a0Already today, three more have done so, including the clash between Feliciano Lopez<\/strong> and Janko Tipsarevic<\/strong>, which Lopez won in a third-set tiebreak. \u00a0Ivan Ljubicic<\/strong> has just taken the first set from Jo-Wilfriend Tsonga<\/strong>, which means we’ll either see an upset or yet another three-setter.<\/p>\n

A fascinating match still on tap for today is a second-rounder between Ernests Gulbis<\/strong> and Milos Raonic<\/strong>. \u00a0As I mentioned yesterday, Gulbis had an excellent clay season last year, even if his dreadful recent results tend to camouflage them. \u00a0Raonic, of course, has virtually no history on the surface, yet it didn’t stop him from advancing past Michael Llodra<\/strong>. \u00a0Oddsmakers give Gulbis a 67% chance of winning, which is almost exactly what my system says, as well.<\/p>\n

Five challengers: <\/em>Thanks to the small Monte Carlo draw, plenty of top-100 players are contesting challengers this week. \u00a0There are five of them, meaning that the talent is spread fairly thin. \u00a0As I noted over the weekend, the top tourney is in Rome, where a handful of youngsters are in the field. \u00a0That event has already seen a major upset, as Serbian qualifier Boris Pashanski<\/strong> knocked out #2 seed Bjorn Phau<\/strong>. \u00a0Top seed Andreas Haider-Maurer<\/strong> also has his hands full with an opening matchup against Uladzimir Ignatik<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In Athens, the field is not as strong, but two good players anchor the draw. \u00a0Benjamin Becker<\/strong> is the top seed, while Dmitri Tursunov<\/strong> is #2. \u00a0In Brazil, the tournament in Blumenau keeps the South American clay circuit going. \u00a0Tiago Fernandes<\/strong>, the surprise finalist last week, is in the draw, as are the winners from two weeks ago in Barletta and Barranquilla, Aljaz Bedene<\/strong> and Facundo Bagnis<\/strong>. \u00a0There’s also plenty of experience there, as the field includes Martin Vassallo Arguello<\/strong>, Jose Acasuso<\/strong>, and Nicholas Massu<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Plenty of notable Americans are playing at the Tallahassee event, including wild card James Blake<\/strong> and fourth-seed Ryan Sweeting<\/strong>. \u00a0Also of interest is a first-round match between wild cards Denis Kudla<\/strong> and Michael Shabaz<\/strong>, as well as the presence of Wayne Odesnik<\/strong>, who qualified. \u00a0Finally, Dustin Brown<\/strong> highlights the field in Johannesburg, the weakest of the five events at this level. \u00a0Clearly, there will be plenty of tennis to follow this week.<\/p>\n

See you tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kohl down: A couple of days ago, I suggested that Roger Federer might have his hands full with a second-round matchup against Philipp Kohlschreiber. \u00a0While Kohlschreiber looked great in Indian Wells, knocking out Robin Soderling and nearly upsetting Juan Martin del Potro, he didn’t do much to justify my optimism this week. \u00a0He just barely … Continue reading Tuesday Topspin: Federer Cruising<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,24,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challengers","category-daily-recaps","category-monte-carlo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}