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  • ATP Valencia: Almagro vs Korolev

    4/19/08 3:03 AM | David Cox
    - Can Korolev become the first man to take a set off Almagro this week ? Probably not despite the Russian’s habit of overturning the odds this week

    Having faced Andreev and Haase, both flashy players who like to keep the points quite short, Almagro will provide Korolev with a completely different style of clay-court tennis.

    Just being solid and waiting for the mistakes won’t be enough for Korolev this time round, he’ll need to really go after his shots and look to pressurize the Spaniard as with plenty of time Almagro is such a fluent ball-striker. He’s got a great serve which has been very effective all week and takes the ball quite early a lot of the time from the back. The backhand is the side most likely to break down, especially down the line so Korolev should aim for that particularly at the start of the match

    Almagro already has two titles on clay this year and no one will relish facing him in Monte Carlo next week. He was very impressive in outmanoeuvring David Nalbandian in Argentina earlier this year.

    Korolev will be hoping this week kick-starts a return to the world’s top 75. He was on the verge of dropping back down into the challengers before this week but with his 4 match losing streak now a distant memory, it looks as though he’ll keep making ATP main draw cuts for another couple of months

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