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10/18/09 9:30 PM | Ricky Dimon
We're indoors the rest of the way as the 2009 ATP season slowly comes to a halt. The final indoor swing kicks off this week in Stockholm and in Moscow, where Shanghai champion Nikolay Davydenko has to play Marat Safin in the first round.
You can at least say this about the Kremlin Cup draw: it certainly wasn't rigged!
The two most well-recognized players in the entire field have to play each other immediately. In a matchup that tournament organizers and fans probably had hoped would be the title match, No. 1 seed Nikolay Davydenko and two-time Grand Slam champion Marat Safin will go head-to-head...in the first round.
Davydenko is coming off a Masters Series title in Shanghai, while Safin is retiring at the end of the season. Both of those developments make a showdown that already would have been compelling all the more intriguing. So intriguing that it's almost hard to even bother paying attention to the rest of the draw.
That's not to say, however, that the winner of the Safin-Davydenko clash will have a cakewalk road to the title. Yes, there is a massive drop-off in talent after the top-seeded Russian, but there are still a host of players who could pose challenges.
Igor Kunitsyn, who always does his best work in his native Russia, beat Safin in last year's final and could face either Safin or Davydenko in round two. Third-seeded Mikhail Youzhny has regained some stellar form following a dismal first half of the season and has to be considered the favorite to reach the final out of a remarkably weak bottom half of the draw.
Also looking to contend are seeds Victor Hanescu, Igor Andreev, and Fabrice Santoro. First-round matches to watch (in addition to Safin-Davydenko) include Andreev vs. Robby Ginepri and Janko Tipsarevic vs. Daniel Koellerer.
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