Paris Masters Round of 16

Despite the fact that we're in the last week of the regular tennis year, a time where there are always some renewed calls for the shortening of the season, the tournament in Paris has been relatively free of big-name upsets. The top players don't seem particularly jaded or worn out, at least through the first two rounds. Out of the 16 seeds, only four have lost thus far, the highest of which was Mikhail Youzhny, who retired against Ernests Gulbis with an injury. In addition to the ninth-seeded Russian, Nicolas Almagro lost to Radek Stepanek, Ivan Ljubicic lost to Stan Wawrinka, and John Isner lost to Michael Llodra. Really, none of those are shocking results, and as a result of the dearth of surprising matches in the first couple rounds, the latter stages of the tournament are shaping up to be very interesting.

The top quarter features Roger Federer against Radek Stepanek, and they played as recently as last week in Basel. Unfortunately for Radek, he got blitzed in that match, and I don't see any reason why he won't suffer the same fate. The second match in this quarter, though, is potentially more interesting. Jurgen Melzer and David Ferrer are both aiming to qualify for the year-end championships, and while Melzer needs this match to keep his chances alive, Ferrer could lose this match and still have a good chance of making it to London. The Spaniard looked a little shaky against the Italian Fognini today, so he may be troubled by Melzer, who is still on a winning streak from his title in Vienna.

The other big match for the ATP Tour finals tomorrow is between Gael Monfils and Fernando Verdasco. If either Verdasco or Melzer loses, then Berdych qualifies automatically. If both lose, then Roddick, Ferrer, and Berdych have all sealed their spots. Verdasco was almost out of the tournament in the first round, down a set to Frenchman Arnaud Clement, before he reeled off nine straight games to win the match. That had more to do with Clement than Hot Sauce, though. Monfils also had trouble in his first round match, coming back from a double-break and 5-1 down in the first set to win it in two. Monfils will have to start a lot better against Fernando, but based on their recent form and the home field advantage, you have to learn towards Le Monf in this one.

The fourth match in the top half of the draw is a rematch of this year's Australian Open semifinal between Andy Murray and Marin Cilic. You have to say, considering how hot both of those players were at that point in the year, neither one had the success they might have expected this season. Cilic has been playing quite poorly since as far back as the clay-court swing, showing none of the firepower he demonstrated at the end of last year and the start of this one. Andy Murray just got through a very tough second-round match against David Nalbandian, who is frankly playing better tennis than the Croat these days. It'd be tough for Cilic to upset Murray again, even though he showed he has the potential to play that well when he trounced the Scot in last year's U.S. Open. He hasn't been able to play that level of tennis lately.

In the bottom half, Andy Roddick gets another early start - playing at 10:30 in the morning for the second straight day. It certainly didn't bother him in his match against Jarkko Nieminen, and I don't expect it should affect him much against Gulbis. The Latvian is another player who is capable of beating Roddick - of beating anybody, really - but he hasn't been at his best lately. Gulbis will have to play better tennis than he's played since the French Open, or hope that Roddick's serve isn't firing tomorrow. At least one of those things will have to happen for Ernie to hope to spoil the American's bid for another appearance at the year-end championships.

Roddick or Gulbis will probably be playing Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals, unless Stanislas Wawrinka can pull off an upset. The Swiss number two looked to be poised for a career resurgence at the U.S. Open, where he blew Andy Murray off the court, finished the campaign of the last American standing, and made his first career grand slam quarterfinal. Since then, he's gone 4-3, but he has lost to Federer, Nadal, and Monfils, so those were tough matches. But Wawrinka needs to end the season with another big win under his belt under the wing of new coach Peter Lundgren. Soderling might just be that scalp. That's going to be an interesting one.

Novak Djokovic has the unenviable task of playing one of the two remaining Frenchmen in Paris, as Michael Llodra upset John Isner, who was probably ready to end his season and pay attention to some NCAA football. Djokovic won this title last year, so he has a lot of points to defend, and has been playing solid tennis since the U.S. Open, since the only person he's lost to in that time was Roger Federer. Tough luck for Llodra, but this match could be an interesting preview of the second singles rubber at the Davis Cup final in a couple weeks. Both of these players will be looking to learn as much about their opponents as possible tomorrow, in preparation for that tie.

The last Round of 16 match is another interesting one. Tomas Berdych plays Nikolay Davydenko. Berdych is the higher-ranked player, but the question of who's in better form is really a race to the bottom. Berdych hasn't made a tournament semifinal since Wimbledon, and Davydenko hasn't made one since Rotterdam, back in February! But Davydenko owns the Czech in the head-to-head, winning 8 of their 9 matches, and his only loss came at Wimbledon, where Davydenko could lose to just about anybody. I don't know who to lean towards in this one, but if Berdych loses, he won't have much confidence heading into the year-end championships.