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4/25/10 10:55 PM | Ricky Dimon
With Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga highlighting the third quarter of the Rome draw as the two players with first-round byes, a door is wide open for David Ferrer, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and many others.
If the top half of the Rome draw is filled to capacity with talent, there must be an opening elsewhere in the field. There is, and it comes in the section where Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga have byes to the second round.
To say Murray and Tsonga are far from at their best on clay would be a gross understatement. Murray has been in dismal form ever since finishing runner-up to Roger Federer at the Australian Open and his lone clay-court match of the season resulted in a 6-2, 6-1 blowout loss against Philipp Kohlschreiber in Monte-Carlo. The fifth-ranked Scot lost his Rome opener last year to Juan Monaco, so all signs point to some more struggles.
Tsonga almost never played on clay in the early stages of his career and things have not gone well for him since he began to venture onto the slow stuff. In his two clay-court tournaments of 2010, the seventh-seeded Frenchman lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Monte-Carlo third round and was upset by Thiemo De Bakker in the Barcelona quarterfinals.
Even though they do not have first-round byes, Ferrero and David Ferrer have to be considered the two favorites in this section. Ferrero dominated the February clay-court swing with two titles and one runner-up performance while Ferrer reached the semifinals in both Monte-Carlo and Barcelona.
Ferrero and Tsonga, who faced each other in Monte-Carlo (the Spaniard won in three sets), could do battle once again round three. Tsonga, however, might have a rematch with De Bakker on his hands in the second round. Both Ferrer and Murray should be able to cruise into round three for what would be their third career encounter.
De Bakker is the only unseeded player in this quarter who is playing particularly solid tennis at the moment, so a semifinal spot looks to be Ferrero's or Ferrer's for the taking.
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i wholeheartedly agree..
clayking , 4/26/10 4:26 AM