Madrid: Nadal v. Gulbis
Madrid well underway now. Couple of shock results, such as Nieminen beating Youzhny. I also picked Moya to beat Kohlschreiber, but only found out later that the Spaniard hasn't been in form lately. Anyway, the match between Nadal and Gulbis is going on now, and I suspect that the crowd in Madrid have been waiting to see this match. Nadal flying the Spanish flag atop the ATP rankings and so on.
Meanwhile Gasquet has match point on Mardy Fish, so it appears his campaign is going reasonably well. Yup, he wins 67(3) 64 63, and moves on to the next round against... the winner of Nadal-Gulbis. Currently at 2-2, 30-30 in the first set.
Now, I obviously have Nadal picked as the winner of tonight's match, but over the course of the year, Gulbis has shown promise as one of the ATP's emerging talents. He hasn't had much success at the smaller tournaments, and so his ranking isn't as high as it could be if he were more consistent (see: del Potro or Murray). But he's an interesting player, and had a good set against Nadal at Wimbledon earlier this year (I had to leave for the airport halfway through the match, so remember it very clearly), and an interesting match against Djokovic at Roland Garros. My only fear for him at this time of the year is fatigue, which overtook him at his most recent tournament, where he crashed out in the first round. Anyway, Nadal is a tough ask no matter how you slice it, so I'm just hoping that the young Latvian can keep pace with Nadal for as long as possible. Make it a good match, etc.
We'll leave it at that for now. Will be back later with post-match thoughts.
EDIT: Wish granted, I think. Was a close match, with Nadal prevailing in the end, 75 36 63. Gulbis really pulls out all the stops for the big ones. Unfortunately, he's not quite there yet.
Meanwhile Gasquet has match point on Mardy Fish, so it appears his campaign is going reasonably well. Yup, he wins 67(3) 64 63, and moves on to the next round against... the winner of Nadal-Gulbis. Currently at 2-2, 30-30 in the first set.
Now, I obviously have Nadal picked as the winner of tonight's match, but over the course of the year, Gulbis has shown promise as one of the ATP's emerging talents. He hasn't had much success at the smaller tournaments, and so his ranking isn't as high as it could be if he were more consistent (see: del Potro or Murray). But he's an interesting player, and had a good set against Nadal at Wimbledon earlier this year (I had to leave for the airport halfway through the match, so remember it very clearly), and an interesting match against Djokovic at Roland Garros. My only fear for him at this time of the year is fatigue, which overtook him at his most recent tournament, where he crashed out in the first round. Anyway, Nadal is a tough ask no matter how you slice it, so I'm just hoping that the young Latvian can keep pace with Nadal for as long as possible. Make it a good match, etc.
We'll leave it at that for now. Will be back later with post-match thoughts.
EDIT: Wish granted, I think. Was a close match, with Nadal prevailing in the end, 75 36 63. Gulbis really pulls out all the stops for the big ones. Unfortunately, he's not quite there yet.