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  • Veteran Santoro still very much in the mix

    10/11/08 2:35 PM | David Cox
    - Fabrice Santoro's career may have spanned three decades, but at age 36 he's still very much in contention for ATP titles even in fields boasting top 10 players.

    Santoro is an example of how on favorable surfaces, the serve-and-volleyer can still succeed in the modern game as long as he has enough guile and accuracy. Most of the modern-day ball-bashers in the top 100 are not used to the variety of spins and looks they get when playing Santoro, and they regularly find themselves having to play shots in unfamiliar areas of the court.

    Igor Kunitsyn is not a ball-basher, but instead relies on extreme consistency and rock-solid groundstrokes to win matches. Being able to limit unforced errors to a minimum will be a test, however, against Santoro's variety. It remains to be seen just how comfortable Kunitsyn is when flicking the ball up from shoelace height.

    Kunitsyn will be hoping the third time proves lucky in Moscow on Saturday. He lost in the semis in 2005 (to Greg Rusedski) and 2006 (to Safin). His progress through the draw has been quite low-key, but he began the week in style, taking out Metz champion Dmitry Tursunov in three sets before easing past Robby Ginepri and Jeremy Chardy, losing no more than seven games.

    The draw has fallen into place quite nicely for Santoro. He started against qualifier Yuri Schukin and then faced the equally low-ranked Denis Istomin in round two. Istomin had ousted No. 6 seed Michael Llodra, but proved no match going down 6-2, 6-4 and then yesterday Paul-Henri Mathieu (possibly suffering from too many matches in too few days) never looked anywhere near 100% on court and had to retire down 6-3, 2-0.

    Prediction: Santoro in 2

Check out Fabrice Santoro and Igor Kunitsyn head-to-head statistics
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