Week 40 Quarterfinals

We're through the first two rounds in this week of dueling Asian ATP 500 tournaments, and things are just starting to heat up. Of the eight matches taking place today, six of them are ones that you wouldn't be surprised to see in a Grand Slam quarterfinal, rather than a relatively low-tier tournament such as these.

In Tokyo, the field was slightly weaker from the beginning, and that's reflected in the line-up we have in store for today. Rafael Nadal, who handled the young Canadian player Milos Raonic fairly easily yesterday - will face a much different opponent today. Dmitry Tursunov is a former top-20 player who nearly vanished from the game. He's been 1-5 on the year before this week, when he notched two very nice wins over Richard Gasquet and his own doubles partner Ernests Gulbis. He's a great personality, so I'm excited to see him playing well again, but his run ends here against Nadal. Still, his ranking should jump quite a bit next week, considering he's at 432 just now.

The second quarterfinal features Viktor Troicki, who won a tough match against Jurgen Melzer in the last round, against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, last week's titlist in Bangkok. He's playing spectacular tennis and could get a worn out Troicki, so I think we're heading for a rematch between Nadal and his countryman in the semifinals. That would be exciting to see.

Two more veterans will face each other in the third quarterfinal - and they're also both in the process of coming back from injury layoffs. Jarkko Nieminen, a steady, completely un-flashy baseliner from Finland will face off against mercurial, net-rushing, recently-married Radek Stepanek. It will be an interesting contrast in styles, and Nieminen has been playing quite well, coming off a final last week. This one could go either way.

The last and best quarterfinal in Tokyo is between Andy Roddick and Gael Monfils. This is an interesting match because both players tend to play more defensive than they really should - and Monfils definitely based his service motion off Andy Roddick's (just watch it - the only difference is Gael doesn't step up to the line with his back foot). Monfils leads in their head-to-head, so this could go either way. I'm looking forward to it.

In Beijing, on the other hand, all four of these matches are just spectacular. Every one could easily have been a final any other week of the year. Top seed Novak Djokovic plays Gilles Simon, who gutted out a tough win against Michael Berrer in the last round. Djoker, on the other hand, got a walkover from Mardy Fish. It's likely that he'll be the fresher player and come out on top - but it could also be that he could have used more time on court, since beating a Chinese wildcard in the first round doesn't really constitute much useful experience.

In the next match, Nikolay Davydenko faces big John Isner. This is definitely a contrast in styles. Normally, I'd say that Davydenko's return would be too much for Isner's serving prowess, but Davydenko has not been in his best form since he came back from injury, and has just been hemorrhaging ranking points this Fall. This could be a win for Isner, but it won't be easy. Both guys played opponents with similar styles in the last round - Isner beat Kohlschreiber while Davydenko bested Cilic. They should each be primed for a good match.

The bottom half has David Ferrer playing Robin Soderling, which is a really great match on paper - but unfortunately for Ferrer, he's gotten owned by Soderling in the past. Robin leads the head-to-head 7-2, and both those wins were on clay. It could be a good match - they play each other tough, most of the time - but the conditions favor Soderling, so I like his odds.

The final match is between Ivan Ljubicic and Andy Murray. Ivan won a Masters event earlier in the year and has not made much noise since. On the other hand, Murray hasn't been playing up to his standards recently - he won a summer hardcourt Masters title, but like his opponent today, has otherwise been less successful than he would prefer. Their last match was a really good one, so I'm hoping this one will be fun as well.