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  • ATP Valencia: day 4 previews

    4/17/08 12:10 AM | David Cox
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    Juan Monaco (2) vs Guillermo Garcia-Lopez

    Monaco’s really shot up the rankings through his success in these smaller clay-court tournaments, winning two in Austria last year and making another final in Chile a couple of months ago. With Ferrer and Robredo out of sorts at the moment, this is a great opportunity for him and he’ll be looking to find some form in this match ahead of a potential quarter-final showdown with two-time champion Almagro. They’ve played four times previously, Garcia-Lopez winning 6-1, 6-3 in Salvador 3 years ago but all of those matches are so far in the past, they’re largely irrelevant. Monaco is the big favourite here and should progress in straights, unusually for a Spaniard Garcia-Lopez’s best surface is not clay, he prefers fast hard courts with his big-serving game


    Marat Safin vs Robin Haase

    Haase is rather fortunate to get to this stage, he was looking a bit ropey against Yuri Schukin on Wednesday, a break down in the first set before the Russian pulled a muscle in his elbow and only won 1 game after that. In many ways, Haase is a bit like the young, raw Safin who also burst onto the scene as a gangly teenager with a monstrous serve and crushing backhand. Time will tell if Haase develops the same liking for clay as Safin did in his younger days. They’ve met just the once before, Safin winning a marathon 7-5, 6-7, 7-5 in Washington last summer. My pick is for him to make it 2-0 on the head-to-head tomorrow, probably in 3 sets but his greater experience on the surface should tell


    Fernando Verdasco (7) vs Mischa Zverev

    Strangely for a serve-volleyer, Zverev has developed a liking for clay. He’s unlike most players of his style who instead grit their teeth and endure a succession of 1st round exits before salvation arrives in the form of grass. Zverev had an impressive 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 win over Peru’s Luis Horna in rd1 and picked up a challenger title on the surface last May. Verdasco is comfortable on all surfaces, the forehand and serve remain as mercurial as ever whether he’s on clay or indoor carpet. He came through a long grind against Ecuador’s Nicholas Lapentti 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, unsurprisingly taking a while to rediscover the clay-court movement after a Davis Cup tie indoors at the weekend. He crushed Zverev 6-3, 6-2 in Japan last autumn and I think it’ll be another win for the Spaniard on Thursday, though maybe closer than last time

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