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  • Blake can ill-afford further slip-ups

    8/13/08 8:30 AM | David Cox
    - It's been 12 years since the US last won a tennis medal in the men's singles with Andre Agassi striking gold in Atlanta. Well that wait looks set to continue unless James Blake can find the form of his life to get past Simon and then stun Federer in the quarters

    Before looking ahead this could be a very close match, the 8th seed vs the 10th seed. Blake beat Simon in their only match just 2 weeks ago; 6-4, 6-3 in Cincinnati. It was a slightly surprising defeat for the Frenchman who had just enjoyed the best run of his career in Indianapolis and Toronto but he looked like he'd run out of gas. Blake also returned superbly that day, recovering from an early break to win 8/9 games

    Simon has definately looked the more impressive in Bejing so far. He had a horrible opening round against Soderling, a man who beat him 6-2, 6-1 earlier this year but Simon was hardly troubled, cruising through 6-4, 6-4. Guillermo Canas was another potential banana skin yesterday but again Simon was simply too strong, coming through 7-5, 6-1

    Blake looked confident and assured during his 6-3, 7-6 win over Chris Guccione but he had a bit of a shocker against Hrbaty yesterday, his game was all over the place and he was quite lucky to win 7-6, 4-6, 6-3. He has served very well all week and that's kept him in these matches

    Prediction: Simon in 3

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