Madrid Quartefinals

Tomorrow we have the quarterfinals in the final clay-court Masters event of the year. It's a fairly strong lineup, but a few of the faces that one might have expected to find there are out, either due to injury or fatigue. But three of the four quarterfinal matches feature six players who have to be considered favorites to make the second week at Roland Garros.

Of those quarterfinal matches, the one that may be the most interesting is Roger Federer against Ernests Gulbis. While the rematch between Federer and Wawrinka today was a bit of a dud, that was in large part because Wawrinka failed to show up, and Federer managed to just stay solid. I don't think he can expect the same kind of performance from Gulbis tomorrow. The court in Madrid is harder and less clay-ish than the rest of the Masters events on the surface, which would normally help Federer. But it helps Gulbis, too. I expect Federer to be in a "refuse to lose" mode tomorrow, since one loss to the young Latvian was more than enough, I'm sure. But he will have to play well - better than he has in a while - to keep Ernests from hitting him off the court, assuming he can keep his head on straight.

The other particularly interesting quarterfinal is between Andy Murray and David Ferrer. Murray has actually performed the best out of any of the quarterfinalists thus far, dropping only nine games in his first two matches. On the other hand, Ferrer is one of only two of the remaining eight players who has dropped a set. So the Spaniard has not been at his best, while Murray seems to have been playing well. But the Scot also hasn't faced the toughest opposition, while Ferrer ran into an inspired Baghdatis in teh second round. This one is a toss-up. Ferrer is likely to be more tired, while one thing that Murray definitely hasn't done lately is play too many matches. I'm anxious to see how this one goes.

The other two matches are less exciting in terms of the outcome. Rafael Nadal plays Gael Monfils, who is playing just his sixth match since March. It seems extremely unlikely that the recently injured Frenchman could upset Nadal, but no matter what the outcome, there should be some stellar shotmaking. The other quarterfinal is two players playing for the honor of losing to Nadal in the semis. Jurgen Melzer and Nicolas Almagro took advantage of a fatigue-ravaged section to reach the quarters. It's really a toss-up about who could win, but on one hand, it's not going to matter once Sunday rolls around.

On the women's side, I'm glad to see that Venus Williams and Sam Stosur, which could be an awesome match, is on center court, despite not having any Spanish players in action. The Europeans seem to care less about the women on clay than the men, at this time of year, but it's good that the tournament organizers saw that this is a match that shouldn't be missed. I pick the winner of that match to make the final, though at that point, it's going to be a tough fight against either Petrova or Jankovic. This should be an exciting weekend. I wish I didn't have a wedding to attend, because I'd stay up all night and watch tennis!