Madrid Third Round

In second round action in Madrid, there was really only one upset to speak of, and it wasn't even on the men's side! Serena Williams lost to Nadia Petrova, way out on court three. This is not a tremendous surprise, because Petrova started the year red hot, and may just now be getting her game back. But I also can't imagine that Serena was terribly excited about the situation, playing on court three as WTA world number one. Maybe she just wanted to head off to France and enjoy some more time off. At least, it was something that was on her mind. Her sister won, though.

On the men's side, there were a couple seeded players going down, but none that were huge surprises. Youzhny lost to Ernests Gulbis, but Youzhny had already looked sluggish in his first round match, and Gulbis is still on fire. Soderling lost to Almagro, but last year's French Open final notwithstanding, Almagro is the better clay court player. Juan Monaco beat Tomaz Bellucci, but Monaco is a veteran on the dirt, and he really shouldn't be ranked as low as he is. And finally, Tsonga retired against Garcia-Lopez. Other than that, things went about as expected.

There have been a lot of seeds losing in Madrid already - not so much the ones that people expected to go deep into the tournament, but only nine of the tourney's sixteen seeds remain in the draw at this round. The three best matches all feature seeds facing off, including the top two seeds.

Rafael Nadal faces John Isner, and while Isner doesn't have a prayer of pulling off the upset, he could make it tight, if Nadal happens to be sluggish. But Isner's big serve is going to be blunted by the surface, and Nadal stands so far back on serve, he'll be able to get into too many points. The best thing that Isner can hope for is very dry weather, or a lot of big kick serves out wide to Nadal's backhand on the deuce court. He may get to a tiebreak, but that's about all he can hope for. He's the last American man standing, so I hope he makes a good show of himself.

The other marquee match will be Roger Federer against Stanislas Wawrinka, a battle of the Swiss top two. Normally, you'd say that Federer is the prohibitive favorite here, but based on some of his recent losses and Stan's recent form, which has been pretty good, and add to that the fact that Wawrinka beat Federer on clay two years ago in Monte Carlo, it's by no means a sure thing that the Fed will win tomorrow. He's still the favorite, sure, because he's Roger Federer, and it will take a long, long losing streak before he stops being the favorite against anyone but Nadal. But he could go off the boil again. He said, after his loss in Estoril, that he really only needs to get fired up for the slams, these days.

The third all-seed face-off is between Marin Cilic, who demolished Eduardo Schwank, and David Ferrer, who barely put off a stout challenge from Marcos Baghdatis. Despite crumbling at the end of the match, it was an impressive performance by Baghdatis, who has shown flashes of his past brilliance that got him to the top ten and the Australian Open final a few years ago. If he could just get some consistency, he could be a real threat again. In any case, Cilic and Ferrer could be an interesting match - Ferrer might be getting jaded from playing so many matches, and I'm sure Cilic is eager to get some traction before the French Open. This one's a bit of a toss-up, with Ferrer as the favorite.

Other matches of interest include Andy Murray against Victor Hanescu - tough to bet against the Scot there, even on clay, which is Hanescu's preferred surface, but he's just not as good against the top tier of players. Gulbis is playing Lopez, who got a lucky loser as Roddick withdrew with a stomach bug, for the privilege of playing Roger Federer. I know I - and the fans and tournament organizers - want to see a rematch. Monfils, who is trying to play for the first time in a long while, faces off against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, and I hope he's healthy.

Verdasco is playing Melzer, who also got a cushy draw, but Melzer can demonstrate some pretty impressive firepower when he neesds it. He was just a few points away from beating Verdasco earlier this year on hard courts, and "Hot Sauce" could be suffering, like Ferrer, from playing so many matches. Who knows? Monaco v. Almagro is another one that's tough to call. It really depends on how accurate Almagro is, since he's going to be blasting the ball no matter what. Monaco is a more traditional clay-courter, but if Almagro's forehand and one-handed backhand - particularly up-the-line - are firing on all cylinders, Monaco won't be able to return much. But he should get a lot of unforced errors if conditions don't suit Almagro. But home court advantage and a vociferous Spanish crowd probably won't hurt him.

One last note about Andy Roddick, who unfortunately came down with a stomach bug and had to withdraw. That's one reason why I think that the American should have played more than a single clay court masters event - if he's forced to miss one (like this one) for reasons outside of his control, that's just another big zero on his scorecard. He's only losing 180 points this week, but he's missed four of the nine masters events in the past year. Since he gets one freebie, that's three tournaments out of his possible "best 18" where he has no points at all. If I were in Roddick's camp, I would really consider revising his schedule next year. Otherwise, he's going to stay in the 6-10 range (if he's lucky) and runs the risk of running into a Nadal or Federer in the quarterfinals or round of 16 in every big event he plays. I do believe that he could make it back up to four, and then not have to face a player like that until the semis.