Week 29 Quarterfinals

It's been an interesting week in tennis - the Hamburg tennis tournament has been experiencing an absolute exodus of the seeded players up through the quarterfinals. Despite 16 seeds, all of which got a first-round bye, only three seeded players made it to the quarterfinals: Juan Carlos Ferrero, Jurgen Melzer, and Tomaz Bellucci. The remaining spots are filled out by some mid-to-lower tier players who have played some great tennis to get this far. Kazakhstan player Andrey Golubev just blew Nikolay Davydenko off the court today - he's still trying to get his season back on track. Maybe the American hard-court season will treat him better.

The quarterfinal match-ups may not look like great matches at first glance, but the lower-ranked players who made it this far have played some great games to get this far, and the seeded players have not done very well, thus far. Will the remaining three be able to turn the tide?

Ferrero, the most accomplished player left in the tournament, plays the last German. Florian Mayer has a chance, but he'll have to play his best to keep the local hope alive. The other two seeds both play Italians, with Melzer - the player with the best current form coming into the tournament - playing Potito Starace, and Bellucci - who probably has the brightest future of the players left - playing Andreas Seppi. I have to pick the favorites in all three of these matches, despite the problems they've had thus far. The fourth match between an Uzbek and Kazakh is an interesting one, and based on their performances today, I'd pick Golubev over Istomin, but it could go either way.

In Atlanta, the tournament has been going a bit more according to the proper script. The Americans have been dominating the tourney, with five of the eight quarterfinal spots going to local boys. The only one who had a chance but couldn't quite make it was Donald Young, who fell to Kevin Anderson in the last round.

John Isner and Michael Russell could not be more different as tennis players - their contrast of styles is interesting. They played an amazing match earlier this year, but Isner has gone on to play better tennis since their last meeting in the spring. I'd pick him over Russell. The other all-American match-up is Mardy Fish against Taylor Dent. Fish has already ousted American Robby Ginepri, and he's been playing like he was back when he was in the top 20, so it'll be tough for Dent to come through this one.

The most interesting quarterfinal is between Roddick and Malisse, who played at the final in Atlanta nine years ago, when it was on clay. That was Roddick's first title ever. Roddick didn't play great against Ram today, but he still won everything pretty comfortably (except the second-set tiebreak). It was just enough of a tight match for Roddick to likely lift his game against the potentially-dangerous Belgian.

The fourth match-up is between Kevin Anderson and Lukas Lacko, who got an easy match against a lackluster Lleyton Hewitt in the round of 16 to make it to the quarters. I'll take Anderson in this one, pretty cleanly. Should be fun to watch, though - it's a good day of tennis, in both the U.S. and Germany.