Friday, 8 August 2008

Catchup on ATP Tour

Firstly I'll talk about the Western and Southern Financial Group Masters, definitely the shock of the year I think. Where do I start! Ok firstly lets do what I always do, I'll split it into sections. 1st Section was headlined by Roger Federer, Andy Roddick having retired. We all thought that Federer would find it easy here but oh no it wasn't. Firstly we must have felt slightly shocked when Federer took so long to dispatch of Ginepri, it must have cast a shadow on our minds and then the tall Ivo Karlovic solidified are worries as he beat Federer in a tight three sets. For the people who don't believe that Federer is losing his dominance this is one of many steps that have made him lose grace. Down below Davydenko and Murray were the main seeds with Gasquet a very possible threat, however both Davydenko and Gasquet lost in Round 2. Tursunov having beaten Safin in the first round took another scalp in the draw by defeating Gasquet. It was left to Murray to save some grace for the seeds. Murray did just that by getting to the finals. The third section was headlined by Blake and Djokovic, Blake suffered like many of the seeds and went in Round 3. Novak Djokovic however ran past his competitors until having to go against Nadal. However Djokovic took little time in dispatching the reigning Wimbledon and Roland Garros champion beating Nadal 6-1,7-5. On the fourth section Ferrer had also lost out early along with Youzhny. Haas did well but was unable to beat Nadal in the 4th round. Honestly I don't remember the last time a Masters was played without the prescence of either Nadal or Federer. Also I have to say it's August (only a few months left) and Federer has only won one small title in Germany! How much more do I have to say before people think Federer is gone.
The next was the Rogers Cup and yet again shocks galore. Ok in the first section Federer and Roddick were drawn together again, but who would have thought neither would get to the quaters! Federer lost to Gilles SImon this time, in actual fact he lost in his first match here! Marin Cilic (the rising Croat) was the conqueror of Roddick. Blake and Davydenko were the top seeds in section 2. Haas yet again played well whilst this time Kiefer was the man. Tursunov also yet again did well. Murray and Djokovic were drawn together whilst Safin and Ancic were also drawn in section 3. Murray showed his determination to break the shadow of Djokovic and beat him twice in a row (in actual fact I feel slightly sad that he beat him as Djokovic must be hurt by the two losses, I hope it doesn't take his chances of winning the US Open away, I'd much rather Djokovic do well in the US than Murray as Djokovic needs to catch up with Nadal. Anyway DJOKOVIC I'm cheering for you in the Olympics and US Open. Gasquet did better here but lost to Nadal the eventual winner. I think if Djokovic beat Murray he would have got the finals as Murray's game doesn't work with Nadal whilst Djokovic has better chances of winning especially when he beat him last week and also because Nadal is weaker on hard courts. Anyway to people who still don't believe Federer has gone then I don't have anything else I could say to you but face the facts. I won't talk about the Country Classics yet because they haven't finished.

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