Tennis week 20.10. - 26.10.2008

[szczwanylis]

Originally Posted by szczwanylis

the same here
penetta 1,36 10/10 simon 1.3 10/10 Kvitova 1,7 7/10
Kanepi 3.0 4/10 fish 1.88 6/10 petzchner 1.7 6/10 nieminen 2.01 pinnacle 8/10 golubev 2.58 4/10 schuettler 1.41 10/10

[rcgills]

Few for today:

Lay Zvonareva @ 1.18 v Llagostera Vives (liability 0.5pts)

Speculative one, this, but Zvonareva retired last week in Zurich when losing 6-3 3-0 to Medina Garrigues. If she's not 100% then Llagostera is in decent form, did a job for me in the 1st round, and may just be able to take advantage here.

Kukushkin v Hanescu @ 3.3 1pt

Kukushkin is in reasonably decent form and came through qualifying here, before impressively beating 5th seed Cilic in the 1st round proper. Has an impressive 36-16 record in his home country. Hanescu has also been in decent form, but retired injured against Djokovic in Madrid last week, and remains to be seen what condition he's in.

[rcgills]

Lay Ivanovic 2-0 v Bammer @ 1.8 to win 2pts

Ivanovic has been in poor form since winning Roland Garros. She's lost to Jie Zheng twice, Paszek, Coin, Petrova and Cibulkova. Only twice in that time has she won more than 2 games in a tournament - at Wimbledon (3rd round), and last week in Zurich where she made the semis (although she only had to win 2 matches to get that far) before losing in 3 sets to Venus Williams. She's played Bammer twice, they've won 1 each, and both of them went to 3 sets. Bammer's not in the best of form, but she's playing in her home country here, and with Ivanovic out of sorts I fancy her chances of getting at least a set.

Lay Pennetta 2-0 v Cibulkova @ 2.38, liability 2.5pts

Two fairly evenly matched players, with both previous meetings between them going to 3 sets. Think Cibulkova's got a decent chance of winning this one, certainly think she'll take a set.

Lay Simon v Seppi @ 1.47 to win 2.5pts

With 5 of Simon's 6 matches in Madrid going to a deciding set (with 4 of those deciding sets being tie-breaks), plus another 3-setter against Monaco in the first round here, tiredness must surely be creeping in. A quote from Simon after losing to Murray in Madrid:

"Yes, I am closer after this week. It won´t be easy because there are only one or two more tournaments left. I´m not sure if I will play in Lyon right now. Right now I just want to rest, I think two days. If there is only one tournament, you can´t make any mistakes, you have to win, you have to do better than the two guys before and that means to defeat a player like Federer or Nadal again, so it won´t be easy. I will do my best, I will try and if I play Shanghai it will be a good thing for me but it´s not the end of the world. Andy didn’t play the Masters Cup last year and he´s number 4 in the world right now."

Doesn't sound like he's overly keen to be here, and with the Paris masters coming up next week, he may be looking more towards that than towards a decent run here in Lyon. Was interested in opposing him first round, but Monaco's form meant that wasn't really of much interest, but I'll go for Seppi to knock him out here.

[rcgills]

Well that went well yesterday didn't it?

Still, onwards and ... upwards?

Benesova v Na Li @ 3.95 1.5pts

Na Li's been inconsistent in recent weeks, capable of beating Serena Williams and losing to Medina Garrigues. Doesn't appear to have been serving too well in her last game against Koryttseva - faced 13 break points (saving 8 of them) and winning just 57 and 44% of points on 1st and 2nd serves respectively.

Benesova started slowly against British Wimbledon junior champ Laura Robson in the 1st round, getting broken twice to lose the 1st set 6-1. She didn't face a single BP from then on, though, and then comfortably beat Chakvetadze in straight sets facing just 2 BPs. Wouldn't make her such an underdog here.