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  • Second round preview: Fourth Quarter

    1/16/08 12:02 AM | David Cox
    - Heavyweights look set to continue serene progress in the fourth quarter and few surprises will come this round.

    Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick are again in action. Roddick plays Germany’s Michael Berrer, a 28 year old journeyman who has made a big leap up the rankings to 54 in the past year. However, Berrer’s game is based around his speed and counter-punching ability and I doubt he’ll have the firepower to trouble Roddick.

    Nadal looked some way from his best in rd1, perhaps still feeling the effects of his epic encounter with Moya in the Chennai semis a week on. He was close to losing both of the opening two sets to a qualifier and will have to raise his level against Florent Serra, the big hitting Frenchman but Nadal should have too much consistency for Serra to seriously trouble him.

    The in-form Philipp Kohlschreiber is a major dark horse in this section after taking the Auckland title last week and he could set up a 3rd round match with Roddick if he gets past Russian Evgeny Korolev tomorrow. Big things were predicted for Korolev this time last year but he failed to progress in 2007, slipping down to 88.

    2003 Aussie Open runner-up Rainer Schuettler will provide a stern test for 28th seed Gilles Simon who took nearly 4 hours to get past Bobby Reynolds in another marathon rd1 encounter. Schuettler was one of the best counter-punchers in the world at his peak a few years back while Simon is very much a flair player, but can he hit through the German over best of 5 sets ?

    24th seed Jarkko Nieminen and Paul-Henri Mathieu will be heavy favourites while veteran Stefan Koubek takes on Agustin Calleri in the other encounter.

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