Watercooler 2/20



[Pete Bodo is on vacation, Thurs Feb 14th to Monday Feb. 25th.]

--Ptenisnet TW Contributing Writer

**

Good Morning all.

ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - FEBRUARY 19:  Raemon Sluiter of Netherlands looks on after his final professional tennis match in which he lost to Michael Llodra of France during day two of the ATP 35th ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament at the Ahoy Centre Rotterdam on February 19, 2008 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.  (Photo by Paul Gilham/Getty Images)
© 2008 Getty Images

Action continues at Rotterdam today which saw the exit of Baghdatis, Robredo and Feliciano Lopez yesterday.

Nieminen will kick off the afternoon's actions against Verdasco in the battle of the lefties.This will be followed by Murray/Haase, Hewitt/Seppi, Mahut/Gabashvili and Berdych/Ljubicic. And, of course, in the evening we have the much talked about clash between Nadal and Dima.

In Buenos Aires, Nicolas Almagro will take on compatriot Oscar Hernandez and top seed David Nalbandian takes on Fabio Fognini.

Kei Nishikori (against Diego Hartfield) and Andy Roddick (against Chris Guccione) both begin their SAP Open tournament today at San Jose.

OOP for WTA Doha here.

Rotterdam also witnessed, yesterday, the final ATP match of Raemon Sluiter who fell to Michael LLodra yesterday in a close second set.  Sluiter attained a career-high ranking of #46 in February of 2004 and has had most of his success at home appearing in finals at Amsterdam(2000), and Rotterdam and Amersvoort (2003).

We wish him luck with his life.