Monte Carlo Crisis Center, Day 6
Good morning. As always, here's today's space for discussing or match-calling the tennis taking place in Monte Carlo (or the WTA tournaments currently under way in Barcelona and Charleston). We ask as usual that you confine the talk to tennis while the live action is going on, and save your off-topic chat until afterwards. Special dispensation will be given for discussing rain delays, should they occur.
Today's Order of Play can be found on this link. After the weather wreaked havoc on yesterday's schedule there are still four third-round matches to be completed (or yet to be started) before the quarterfinals can commence. These four matches will all be started simultaneously on different courts, with Rafael Nadal taking on Nicolas Lapentti on Court Central (match stopped yesterday after one game) and Andy Murray continuing his match against Fabio Fognini on the Court des Princes. Sadly no-one except local spectators will see the match between Nikolay Davydenko and David Nalbandian, as it's to be played on the non-televised Court 2.
The plan is then to play all four quarterfinals on Court Central, though my checking of weather forecasts leaves some doubt as to whether this will prove practical. Following Nadal vs. Lapentti, Novak Djokovic will play Fernando Verdasco. Thesy are two apiece in their head-to-head, and 1-1 on clay. Afterwards the qualifier Andreas Beck takes on Stanislas Wawrinka. The winners of the four earlier matches will then play the remaining two quarterfinals.
Given the paucity of matches that finished yesterday - and the fact that three of those that did finish occurred on a non-televised court - there isn't much to go on in selecting a player of the day yesterday. Andreas Beck certainly deserves a pat on the back for defeating Juan Monaco; Novak Djokovic took three sets to finish off Albert Montanes, and Fernando Verdasco turned in an impressive 6-2, 6-1 scoreline against David Ferrer.
However, I think that even though he was playing a below-par Roger Federer, Stanislas Wawrinka deserves recognition for his straight-sets victory yesterday - mentally it's not always easy to chalk up a win against a player you've never defeated before, especially one of Federer's traditional calibre, who's also a friend. I've always wondered a little about Wawrinka's mental strength in key moments in matches, especially against the biggest names. He's come pretty close a couple of times against Rafael Nadal. These included their two-tiebreak match in Miami recently, and also the Stuttgart final in 2007, when Wawrinka played magnificently, especially with his backhand, for stretches of the match, but in the end Nadal appeared to be mentally stronger at key moments, and able to come back from behind in both sets. Yesterday, while not playing his best tennis, Stan the Man finished it off in the end.
As always, enjoy today's tennis.
- Rosangel Valenti
[Note - as of around 10.10 a.m. EST, we have moved to commenting on an Overflow post - see link below - RV.
Further note - as of around 16.00 p.m. EST, we have moved onto Overflow 2 - see link below - RV].
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