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  • Tennis Channel Open Preview

    3/3/08 4:01 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - The ATP Tour heats up this week as the players hope to fine-tune their games in time for the rapidly-approaching Masters Series events in Indian Wells, California and Miami, Florida. While most of the world’s best are taking their acts to Dubai in preparation, the Tennis Channel Open has more than enough intrigue to make it worth watching for any tennis fan.

    This week’s Tennis Chanel Open in Las Vegas looks great on paper thanks to handful of big-name players, but what’s really going to make the tournament interesting is that it appears to be a complete free-for-all for the title. Especially considering what happened last week—Sergiy Stakhovsky winning in Zagreb and Steve Darcis stunning the field in Memphis—it would not be terribly surprising to see anyone in the Tennis Channel Open win it all.

    The main reason is that there is nobody in the field who is anywhere close to unbeatable. Only Michael Llodra and Robin Söderling are in particularly good form at the moment, but neither player should strike any real fear into an opponent. Plus Söderling will have to venture outside this week, away from his indoor stomping grounds, and he has to be tired after playing so much tennis in the second half of February.

    Before thinking about the title, someone in the top half of the draw will have to put up a consistently huge effort throughout the week just to reach the final. That section is far more difficult than the bottom. No. 1 seed Fernando Gonzalez has been dealing with an abdominal problem, but he is always an extremely dangerous player. The Chilean, however, will have his hands full right from the start against Dudi Sela. A bit of revenge will be on the line when they square off, as Sela stunned Gonzalez in the Davis Cup World Group Playoffs last September. Sela’s win clinched the tie for Israel.

    If Gonzalez gets past Sela, he could play Llodra, already a two-time 2008 titlist, in the quarterfinals and then Soderling in the semis. Llodra, however, might have to deal with 6’9’’ John Isner before even getting to Gonzalez. Söderling, who has been runner-up in Rotterdam and Memphis in consecutive weeks, looks he’ll have to navigate a road (starting in the second round) of Ernests Gulbis, Marcos Baghdatis, and then either Gonzalez or Llodra if he wants to continue his streak of reaching tournament finals.

    The bottom half of the draw is not as strong, but it dose boast the most interesting opening-round matchup in Marat Safin vs. second-seeded Lleyton Hewitt. Even though neither Hewitt nor Safin (especially not Safin) has been playing extraordinarily well of late, the winner of that match should be favored to make it all the way to the final. Injury-plagued veteran Guillermo Canas, a sensation on the U.S. hard courts last spring, is probably the only one who can threaten either Hewitt or Safin in the bottom section, but he’ll have to be 100-percent healthy in order to do that.

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