Thursday 10 March 2011

Tennis ATP & WTA Week 10 (07/03/11)

A bit late on this but I'll keep it short. Basically we have the BNP Paribas Open this week, which will last until next week so it's one of the big non GS events. Anybody who is relevant in the tennis world, if not injured, will be playing here. Only Monfils, Youzhny and Nalbandian are missing from the seeds in the men's whilst only Serena and Venus are missing from the women's - all of whom I believe are injured.

Lets start things off with the mens. Rafael Nadal will be back from his injury, well he was back at Davies Cup but this is his official ATP return. His draw isn't massively dangerous but he'll have to look out for Ferrer who upset him at the Aussies, though I doubt they'll be a repeat here. Almagro and Simon are lesser threats who have had great form recently but have awful records against Nadal. Closer to home will be Monaco, Baghdatis or Tsonga, all potentially dangerous though shouldn't harm Nadal.

We then have the Soderling/Murray duo on the other side - seems to be the norm now, them being next to each other. Well Soderling has been on fire, with only 1 loss this year, it's hard to discount him. Dolgopolov and Del Potro will be early threats to the Swede as well as Ljubicic in fact, who is always a threat. Murray cannot be discounted either. He will have Robredo and Verdasco to contend with, though I doubt either will make an impact.

Another quite common lineup is Roddick next to Djokovic. In between them are Isner, Gasquet, Troicki, Gulbis and Hewitt. I honestly don't see anybody that could break the party. It's likely that one will miss the QFs but I doubt that the eventual winner from this group will not be either of them.

Federer will head the last section with Berdych on the other side. Huge threats include Cilic and Wawrinka, considering Berdych looked slightly out of form. I don't see any problems on Federer's side unless Raonic makes an inspired performance, which I doubt because he's still to fresh.

On the women's side Wozniacki heads up the section of teen queens with Radwanska and Azarenka in the lineup. Amongst the dangers here are Flavia Pennetta and Maria Kirilenko, I would love to see Azarenka topple the favourites here but it's difficult not to consider Wozniacki the favourite here.

Stosur and Li will be in draw 2 with Russians Sharapova and Kuznetsova on side. I don't know about Stosur's form but Li hasn't looked great recently, after the Australians, whilst I remember Kuznetsova doing well. Hantuchova and Shuai Peng will also be in this draw and don't forget fallen No.1 Dinara Safina.

Zvonareva will be fighting against Schiavone, Pavlyuchenkova, Peer, Kanepi, Wickmayer and possibly Cibulkova. She has a plethora of hidden threats in her draw, though I suspect Zvonareva will do well in this draw anyway.

Finally Clijsters looks to continue her dominance on tour being seeded 2nd here. Jankovic, who seems to be on the up will be a potential QF opponent. Kvitova and Petkovic are both in her draw, arguably two of the most in form players this year whilst Marion Bartoli has also been doing well.

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