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1/12/09 5:38 PM | Ricky Dimon
Ernests Gulbis will look to avenge last season's loss to Marcel Granollers in the Heineken Open first round on Tuesday. The winner will meet No. 1 seed Juan Martin Del Potro.
It will be the second career head-to-head meeting between Ernests Gulbis and Marcel Granollers when the two players do battle in the first round of the Heineken Open on Tuesday. Granollers demolished Gulbis 6-2, 6-0 last season en route to a surprising title on the clay courts of Houston.
Gulbis, however, should have a much better shot on hard courts. His quarterfinal appearance at last year's French Open notwithstanding, Gulbis' big serve and power game work better on faster surfaces. Two of his best three performances as a professional--the other one being the French Open--have come on hard courts. The 20-year-old Latvian reached the fourth round of the 2007 U.S. Open and the quarterfinals of the Masters Series Cincinnati in 2008. Gulbis, who has tons of talent but is wildly inconsistent, upset Novak Djokovic in the Brisbane first round last week but followed that up with a straight-set loss to Paul-Henri Mathieu.
Granollers, ranked just one spot ahead of Gulbis at No. 50 in the world, is more at home on clay as his Houston title suggests. The Spaniard racket up a ton of rankings points in various ATP and Challenger events on the slow stuff last season, but struggled to win any matches at all in the main draws of ATP hard-court events. Granollers, however, has already won three this year. He took advantage of a favorable draw last week to reach the semifinals of the Chennai Open. When he ran into eventual champion Marin Cilic, however, he went down in straight sets.
This match, of course, will be completely determined by Gulbis' form. He will dictate almost every rally and try to end points as fast as possible. Gulbis likes pace, so he could run into some trouble if Granollers feeds hip high, topspin groundstrokes over and over again. Whatever happens, it's going to be much different from their Houston encounter. Gulbis will probably throw away either the first or second set due to erratic play, but he should be able to advance in three.
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