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  • ATP Dubai: Ferrer (4) vs Lopez

    3/6/08 7:58 AM | David Cox
    - 3 Spaniards remain in the tournament at this stage but at the start of the week, you wouldn’t have picked Feliciano Lopez to be one of them, the 26 year old from Madrid had only won 1 match in 2008 prior to this week.

    However he’s been enjoying reward on the bouncy hard courts of the Middle East, impressively taking out 8th seed Berdych 6-2, 7-5 yesterday. He’s in with real chance of making the semis with an impressive 4-2 head-to-head against Ferrer. As the bigger hitter of the two, Lopez has dominated their matches indoors; 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in Stockholm 2006 and then 7-6, 7-5 in Madrid last October. However, perhaps tellingly, Ferrer won their last hard court match outdoors, 6-4, 6-4 in Tokyo last year where the courts are quite similar to Dubai, possibly slightly faster.

    Ferrer really had to work for a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 win over Olivier Rochus yesterday, finding his game just in time. He’ll need to be on top of his returning game against Lopez who’s served 29 aces so far

    Lopez was at his peak back in 2005, the year when he reached a best ranking of 20 and made the Wimbledon quarters. Since then he’s drifted just inside the top 50 while Ferrer has simply soared, cracking the top 4 last year after making the masters cup final and landing 3 titles.

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