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8/16/11 3:38 PM | Ricky Dimon
Tomas Berdych has a perfect record against Juan Monaco heading into a Cincinnati second-round clash on Tuesday. Monaco is coming off an opening win over Tommy Haas.
Tomas Berdych and Juan Monaco will be meeting for the fifth time in their careers at the ATP level when they collide in the second round of the Western & Southern Open on Tuesday afternoon. Berdych leads the head-to-head series 4-0 and he has prevailed twice this year on clay; 7-5, 6-3 in Madrid and 6-2, 6-2 in Rome.
That does not bode well for Monaco, who does his best work on the slow stuff as opposed to hard courts. The 39th-ranked Argentine went back to the clay following Wimbledon, delaying his U.S. Open Series debut until last week in Montreal. Monaco fell to Ivo Karlovic in a third-set tiebreaker, but he bounced back on Monday in Cincinnati with a three-set comeback win over Tommy Haas.
An all-court player as his results suggest, Berdych is most dangerous on a fast surface such as American hard courts. His summer has not yet taken off in full flight, in part because--like Monaco--he did not play any Series event until Montreal. The ninth-ranked Czech pocketed two match victories before going down to Janko Tipsarevic in the quarters. Berdych, who earned a first-round bye this week, is a stellar 36-16 for his 2011 campaign.
All signs--especially the last two meetings between the two players--point to a Berdych victory. Monaco's only real chance is to get plenty of looks at second serves and force his opponent into baseline rally after baseline rally. Expect a more competitive encounter than the previous two, but Berdych in two close sets is the pick.
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Sad but so true. And to think this is the man who, as a teenager 7 years ago, dashed Federer's dream of a gold medal.
ed251137 , 8/16/11 11:48 PM
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Berdych is an underachiever.Prodigious talent gone to waste.
stratocast51 , 8/16/11 9:51 PM