Basel and St. Petersburg Preview and Up to date.

Hey again...So just to let everyone know, this time of year always has a few guys fighting for dear life to get into the Masters Cup.  So far this years dog fighters are, Simon, Blake, Roddick, Del Potro, and Ferrer.  Keep these guys in mind the next few weeks, it'll be interesting to see who makes it.  

Now to the tournaments.  First for a quick Lyon update, Simon went through in 3 sets to Juan Monaco (Simon never goes three, right?) Muller lost and Mathieu beat Canas.  In the most shocking match, Robredo (yes that's right my pick for the semis) got plastered by Benneteau, Julien is playing in his home country, but this is still quite a lopsided victory.  

Basel:  Basel saw Vliegen, and a few legend killers get to qualify: George "Sampras Killer" Bastl and Benjamin "Agassi's Bad Back Is No Match For Me" Becker.

The main draw showcases Roger Federer as the 1 seed, back in his home country, and with more fans than ever, due to the fact we all realized people can't win every match forever.  Blake, Del Potro, and Nalbandian are also in Basel, and still alive, showing some dangerous floaters for Fed.  I can't really see any of them beating him (yea I know Nalbandian is his kind of nemesis, and Fed did just play 3 sets with Bobby Reynolds).  I see him moving along, maybe Nalbandian can take him out, but if he will its going to be on Sunday, and we all know how Fed likes to spend his Sundays.   Blake beat him in the Olympics, but I doubt Blake has the consistency to beat anyone good two times in a row anymore.  Look for a Fed/Nalbandian final, with the Swiss crowd pleased. Oh yea, and Blake won today in three against Kiefer in a tough match.  

St. Petersburg:  This tournament has quite a bit of personality to it.  The main draw showcases, Safin, Youzhny, Davydenko(OK he has zero personality, but he's still good), Cilic, Tursunov, Verdasco, Ancic, Tipsarevic, and Murray.  It should be a real entertaining week, with some good ones already coming up in round 2.  Murray plays Gulbis, maybe this will be when Gulbis finally wins a big match instead of always making it a war.  Schuettler/ Hrbaty should be a nice match up of has-beens, and every match Safin plays is fun to watch.  I'm going to predict a Safin/ Murray final with the Brit or whatever he wants to be getting through.  

So we're all caught up to date with this week, now we'll sit back and see how it all develops.  Next blog I'll give you scores and good match ups for all 3 tournaments at once, now that we're getting down to the business of them.  Until then , take care.

As always...SCORES and DRAWS