Shanghai Masters Quarterfinals

Surprisingly, this week in Shanghai has not really turned out to be about the World Tour Finals contenders - the majority of them have come out playing pretty atrocious tennis, at a time when they need to bring their A games. Almagro, Cilic, Youzhny, and Verdasco failed to win a match this week. Berdych won only one before he was upset by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (who is on a real tear, by the way) who Andy Roddick was dominating before the American aggravated an injury to his thigh muscle. For the record, this is Roddick's third trip to Shanghai, and he's been injured in all three trips. The prior two ended his season, but he's hoping that he'll be able to come back and still qualify for the year-end championships in London. For what it's worth, Roddick was playing really good tennis in this Asian swing before he got injured.

The two players who are showing up for the Shanghai Masters are Jurgen Melzer, who got the biggest win of his career in an upset of Nadal yesterday, and JW Tsonga, who is playing just his second tournament back since Wimbledon, but is through to the quarters all the same. Both guys need deep runs here to bolster their odds of making it to London, and while Tsonga has his work cut out for him - he faces Andy Murray tonight - Melzer should see his way through the semis, as he'll be happy to find himself facing Juan Monaco instead of Davydenko or Verdasco. All credit to Melzer for his victory, but the fact is if you want to beat Nadal, it's best to get him on a hard court, late in the season.

I like Murray against Tsonga, as the Scot has owned the Frenchman recently, and Tsonga is still shaking the rust off. JW's lone win against Murray was in the first round of the Aussie open when he made his shocking run to the final, and he hasn't really had that kind of form recently. It should be a fun match though, and since it's the first one on, I'll probably stay up to watch it.

The other exciting match-up is another round in the Federer-Soderling battle. But come on, Federer is still 13-1 against the Swede, and that one loss almost went the other way. I like Federer to get through to the semis here, as well. If it's raining and they have to close the roof, that could help Soderling, as the wind can mess with his toss and big groundstrokes. But even with that much help, it shouldn't make a difference.

The other two quarterfinals feature some surprising contenders - Jurgen Melzer and Juan Monaco, which could go either way but ought to go Melzer's way, as the in-form player. In the other quarter, Novak Djokovic faces Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who is playing the best tennis of his career, but his run will end against Novak tonight.