Ricky Dimon

• French Open Preview: Top 25 Contenders (Part 3)

  2008-05-08 15:35:00
  

  In the 25 days leading up to the 2008 French Open, Ricky is counting down the Top 25 contenders – starting from No. 25 and going to No. 1 – in Roland Garros. Part 3 of the preview includes contenders 17-19.
  
  #19: To Be Announced
  I have to admit it; I had a spot reserved for Richard Gasquet when I started making the list one week ago, but at this point he has lost his place in the Top 25. I even refuse to put him all the way down here at No. 19. Why? Well, the Frenchman has commenced his clay-court season with dreadful losses to Sam Querrey in Monte-Carlo and qualifier Luis Horna in Rome. Overall he has just a 10-9 match record in 2008. Gasquet's French Open record is also dismal, especially given how high expectations for him are in his native land. He is just 4-6 in Roland Garros and he has reached the third round just once. His form this season does nothing to foresee a best-ever performance there this time around. Until someone steps up, either in Rome or Hamburg, there's one spot for the taking in this Top 25. Barring a sudden and drastic turnaround in Hamburg, it won't be Gasquet.
  
  #18: Tomas Berdych
  No player has both more going for him and more going against him at the same time than Berdych. In the Czech's favor is that he is only 22 years old but has been lurking around the Top 10 of the ATP rankings for more than two years. He currently stands exactly 12th. Furthermore, Berdych stands 6'5'' and is a great athlete and can move very well for someone of his size. That allows him to be a threat on all surfaces, although clay is definitely not what he would like to play on day in and day out. The surface, however, will be the least of Berdych's worries at the French Open. First and foremost is his health. He sustained a painful high ankle sprain in the fifth set of a Davis Cup rubber against Nikolay Davydenko in early April and has not played since. Berdych is currently targeting a return in Hamburg, and he better find some immediate success there in order to get enough matches under his belt to give him some hope and confidence heading into Roland Garros. His record at the French is a mere 4-4, but he managed to make it to the fourth round in 2006. The knock on Berdych is that he is too mentally fragile to challenge the top players on tennis' biggest stages (and he has done nothing to dispel that notion), and it's hard to imagine him achieving a breakout if he isn't at 100 percent. Nonetheless, Berdych is too talented to rank him lower than No. 18 for any Grand Slam.
  
  #17: Mikhail Youzhny
  Unfortunately we have another top player dealing with an injury at the moment in 12th-ranked Mikhail Youzhny. Whereas Berdych would be considerably higher on this list if he had no no physical issues, Youzhny probably doesn't deserve to be much higher than 17th anyway. The Russian, somewhat surprisingly, just has never been overwhelming on clay. He is 8-7 lifetime at the French Open and has reached the fourth round just once (last year). Inconsistency is the problem with Youzhny on the red stuff; he made it to the Munich final last season in addition to his French Open performance, but did very little else. Really that's what you would expect out of him. He is a great athlete and has the movement to get to almost any ball on clay while being rock-solid from the baseline. Youzhny does not generate a ton of topspin, however, and he doesn't particularly like that kind of shot coming back in his direction, so he has problems dealing with true clay-court specialists. A neck problem certainly doesn't help matters; Youzhny retired with the injury after losing the first set of his first match in Monte-Carlo two weeks ago to fellow Russian Igor Andreev. Nonetheless, there is hope for Youzhny yet. He is a streaky player who can catch fire at any time. Just look at his start to 2008: he won the title in Chennai by blowing out Rafael Nadal in the final and he followed that up with a quarterfinal appearance at the Australian Open. If Youzhny is feeling well and gets a nice draw he has second-week potential again in Roland Garros, otherwise there could be a whole lot more self-bashing with his tennis racket that has made him a YouTube phenomenon.

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