After some uncertainty surrounding Fed's participation in Rome, its looks like he is playing today. Lets hope for some good matches today.
1. Marcel Granollers (ESP)
v
[WC] Fabio Fognini (ITA)
Fognini will cast his spell to win this.
2. [3] Roger Federer (SUI)
v
Carlos Berlocq (ARG)
Fed should have a comfortable day.
3. [10] Juan Martin Del Potro (ARG)
v
Mikhail Youzhny (RUS)
It can get a bit tough for Delpo. Youzhny is no pushover but Delpo will beat him.
4. Florian Mayer (GER)
v
[2] Rafael Nadal (ESP)
Mayer leads their h2h. But I think Nadal will cruise to an easy win today like 6-1, 6-2. I'll be very surprised if it goes closer than this.
5. [16] Richard Gasquet (FRA)
v
[WC] Paolo Lorenzi (ITA)
Gasquet. Lorenzi is a loser and probably must have already started preparing for the next tournament.
6. Stanislas Wawrinka (SUI)
v
[8] Janko Tipsarevic (SRB)
Match of the day for me. I'm going with Stan 'the man'. But even if Tipsy wins, it will be good.
7. [7] Tomas Berdych (CZE)
v
Lukasz Kubot (POL)
Berdy in 2
8. [9] John Isner (USA)
v
Andreas Seppi (ITA)
Seppi is a decent player. Inser will have another of his typical tough matches and will prevail closely in 3. This is his problem, he never has any easy wins. By the time he reaches the later rounds, he has no steam left.
ATP Matches Of The Day: Rome 2012, Day 4
posted on 16/5/12
And Sepi wiiiiiiiins , yeeea
posted on 16/5/12
Can Mayer do it again
posted on 16/5/12
Order of play out for tomorrow:
http://www.internazionalibnlditalia.com/posting/2012/416/op.pdf
posted on 16/5/12
I might be wrong Amri, but my impression is Rafa gets to play Almagro for a number of times in each season........
posted on 16/5/12
The last time they played was a couple of years ago.
posted on 16/5/12
My fav match of the day def. Seppi's win over Isner in front of his home crowd.
posted on 16/5/12
I saw a few games of the first set. Nadal looked good on red clay, his usual spring(y) self
posted on 17/5/12
I saw a few games of the first set. Nadal looked good on red clay, his usual spring(y) self
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I would expect both Nole and Rafa to play well here but I would not expect either of them to play all their cards if they do meet in the final. RG is the real prize they both want to get.
posted on 17/5/12
That said, if Nole does not win here he is putting an awful lot of eggs into that RG basket - his entire spring has been somewhat underwhelming so if he fails to win here and at RG, he will be going into the second half of the year looking quite heavily wounded.
Nevertheless, I can see that Nole might have calculated that it was all a gamble worth taking. You only get so many chances to hold all four slams at once, so he may as well forget about everything else.
posted on 17/5/12
I do expect Nole and Rafa to play "all their cards in Rome if they meet" cause that result will have some influence psychologically on RG (and its final if they were to meet there as well). Nadal wants to confirm his win in MC was no fluke and Djoko wants to show Nadal before RG that there is a very good reason why the MC final was so one sided.
But as you say in your following post, the more Djoko does now, the less pressure and work he will have later in the season.