Hamburg Crisis Center, Day 5

By Rosangel Valenti, TW Contributing Editor

Good morning. Please use this post to discuss the tennis taking place today, for either the ATP Masters Series event in Hamburg, or the WTA tournament taking place in Rome. We're now at the quarterfinal stage in Hamburg, and the event organisers must be delighted - the world top three have all survived so far, and the quarterfinal lineup includes a German, Nicolas Kiefer, for the first time since 1999, when Tommy Haas made it that far into the event. Here's the link to the day's Order of Play.

I'm part way through sorting my photos taken on Wednesday in Hamburg. The Federer and Nadal galleries are not yet completed, but follow this link if you wish to see the web gallery containing pictures of other players, from Marat Safin (these photos are dedicated to D-Wiz) through to Novak Djokovic. I'll post the other links as soon as the galleries are ready. Click on any picture to enlarge.

Match Choice:

Given that I'd expect each of the top three to come through fairly comfortably (Roger Federer against Fernando Verdasco, Novak Djokovic against Albert Montanes, and Rafael Nadal versus Carlos Moya), I'll pick the third match of the day - Andreas Seppi taking on Nicolas Kiefer. Seppi has been playing well recently, both this week and in Rome. He efficiently removed Richard Gasquet from the tournament earlier in the week (admittedly, Gasquet looked uncomfortable, spending most of the match mired behind the baseline), as well as the twelfth seed, Juan Monaco. Kiefer, in addition to beating two seeds (Paul-Henri Mathieu, and the number four, Nikolay Davydenko) has also defeated last week's Rome finalist, Stanislas Wawrinka. Kiefer and Seppi have never played each other before. The crowd, of course, has helped lift Kiefer in his earlier matches this week, and could prove to be a factor again.

Player of the Day:

Fernando Verdasco pulled off  a victory over a below-par David Ferrer yesterday, but I think I have to go with Nicolas Kiefer for the second day running, for his straight-sets upset of world number four, Nikolay Davydenko. He served well throughout, and maintained the kind of consistency and depth on his groundstrokes seen in his earlier defeat of Wawrinka.

Weather Report:

Unfortunately, the forecast for today has changed - there could be light rain in Hamburg. In Rome, the women can expect a cloudy day, with some sun.

As always, enjoy today's tennis.