Queen's Club and Halle previews and predictions

An extra week was built in for the 2015 installment of the annual summer grass-court swing, and thus a majority of competitors enjoyed some rest in between the French Open and the upcoming events at Queen’s Club and in Halle. The result should be a whole host of high-quality tennis over the next seven days.

If the entry lists have anything to do with it, the entertainment will be spectacular from start to finish. Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka, and Rafael Nadal are on hand at Queen’s Club, which is so loaded that that John Isner, Richard Gasquet, and David Goffin—just to name a few—go in without a seed. Roger Federer is once again leading the way in Halle, where the field is so deep that unseeded floaters include Philipp Kohlschreiber, Lukas Rosol, Dominic Thiem, and Jerzy Janowicz.

AEGON Championships

Where: London, England
Surface: Grass
Prize money: 1,574,640 Euros
Points
: 500

Top seed: Andy Murray
Defending champion: Grigor Dimitrov

Draw analysis: It’s safe to say the reigning French Open champion did not have any favors done for him at the Queen’s Club draw ceremony. Wawrinka, Nadal, and Milos Raonic are all in the bottom half of the bracket. In fact, the last quarter alone features Wawrinka and Nadal. But before the Swiss can worry about that potential blockbuster quarterfinal, he has to open against Nick Kyrgios in advance of a possible date with either Kevin Anderson or Lleyton Hewitt. Nadal’s opener will come against familiar foe Alexandr Dolgopolov. Raonic, meanwhile, could run into Gasquet in round two.

As for Murray, expectations will be high after he won two consecutive clay-court titles and lost on the red stuff only when Novak Djokovic knocked him out of the Roland Garros semis in five sets. The Scot has to be considered the title favorite at Queen’s Club, especially based on the draw. Danger abounds everywhere because the field is so strong, but Murray’s half is weaker by comparison. It also includes Marin Cilic, Grigor Dimitrov, and Feliciano Lopez. Murray, Dimitrov, Fernando Verdasco, and Roberto Bautista Agut are all in the same section.

First-round upset alert: Sam Querrey over (6) Grigor Dimitrov. Dimitrov dominated their only previous encounter 6-3, 6-2, but it came two years ago on the hard courts of Washington, D.C. A stuck-in-neutral Bulgarian is a disappointing 18-11 on the season and he recently lost in the French Open first round to Jack Sock. Dimitrov also has the pressure of playing as the defending Queen’s Club champion. Querrey is not exactly on fire, himself, but the American has always fared relatively well on grass.

Hot: Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka, Viktor Troicki, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Jeremy Chardy

Cold: Milos Raonic, Grigor Dimitrov, James Ward, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Lleyton Hewitt

Quarterfinal predictions: Andy Murray over Gilles Muller, Marin Cilic over Feliciano Lopez, Milos Raonic over David Goffin, and Rafael Nadal over Kevin Anderson

Semifinals: Murray over Cilic and Raonic over Nadal

Final: Murray over Raonic

[polldaddy poll=8928935]

Gerry Weber Open

Where: Halle, Germany
Surface: Grass
Prize money: 1,574,640 Euros
Points
: 500

Top seed: Roger Federer
Defending champion: Roger Federer

Draw analysis: Federer finds himself in by far the tougher half of the bracket as he bids for a third consecutive Halle title. To begin with, he drew Tomas Berdych instead of Gael Monfils as his top-four seed. Before that comes into play, though, Federer first has to open with Kohlschreiber before old Wimbledon nemesis Sergiy Stakhovsky potentially awaits in the last 16. Dangerous grass-courters Bernard Tomic and Ivo Karlovic are also part of the top half.

Nishikori should enjoy a friendlier path to the Halle final. The No. 2 seed has a difficult first-rounder on paper against Thiem, but Thiem is not as comfortable on the slick stuff as he is on hard courts or clay. Janowicz and Dustin Brown could present problems on grass, but both men are prone to the occasional—if not frequent—disastrous performance. The draw’s third quarter is especially wide open with Monfils and Tommy Robredo as the two seeds. This may be a golden opportunity for 37-year-old German Tommy Haas to shift his latest comeback from injury into high gear. Haas, who begins his campaign against Andreas Seppi, is a two-time Halle champion (2009 and 2012).

First-round upset alert: Lukas Rosol over (4) Gael Monfils. Monfils is in fine form, but he has never loved clay and he also may be less than 100 percent (what’s new?). Although the Frenchman at least managed to reach the Stuttgart semifinals, he promptly got routined by Nadal. Rosol may be able to use the surface to his advantage and hit through Monfils’ defense. Janowicz also has a good chance of taking out sixth-seeded Pablo Cuevas, but that cannot be considered a big upset on grass.

Hot: Kei Nishikori, Gael Monfils, Pablo Cuevas, Andreas Haider-Maurer

Cold: Tommy Robredo, Ernests Gulbis, Florian Mayer, Andreas Seppi, Tommy Haas, Mikhail Kukushkin

Quarterfinal predictions: Roger Federer over Bernard Tomic, Tomas Berdych over Ivo Karlovic, Tommy Haas over Lukas Rosol, and Kei Nishikori over Jerzy Janowicz

Semifinals: Federer over Berdych and Nishikori over Haas

Final: Federer over Nishikori

[polldaddy poll=8928933]

99 Comments on Queen's Club and Halle previews and predictions

  1. Looking at Ricky’s Queens “hot” list, hard to figure out why Rafa’s not on it. He just won a grass tournament beating a strong field. LaMonf, the guy Rafa just humbled (on grass) in straight sets, the guy old man Fed humbled at RG, is hot. Kei, the guy who is one match away from an injury (not wishing him ill, just highlighting that he is injury prone) in hot. Don’t ask me about the other “hot” guys, don’t know enough about them……………………

  2. It doesn’t matter what anybody predicts as long as he is not a Fed or Djoker fan making the prediction to put down Rafa. Ricky’s “hot” ” cold” categories seem to follow no logic but his analyses are usually superb. Maybe he tries to antijinx Rafa or more likely he tries to stimulate discussion by making outrageous predictions/hot/cold categories.

    • This site is a pro Rafa site, honestly I feel many a times Rafa is purposely put down to get a reaction from his fans and more traffic.

      Otherwise for gods sake, if Raonic is 100%, he will beat Rafa beats every sane logic.. Oh yeah if wishes were horses.

  3. I don’t see Raonic beating Rafa, especially since he is just coming back from the foot surgery. I am not even sure Raonic will get that far.

    The big match for Rafa will be Stan. He’s coming off winning RG and has to be feeling good now. But if Rafa continues to play the way he did in Stuttgart, then I like his chances.

  4. Milos certainly won’t be 100%..can’t see him beating Rafa…and Murray wining two clay tournaments means absolutely nothing for his grass court game…it may be more difficult for him to transition to grass…so, with all of this in mind, I think Rafa has a pretty good chance for the title…again, it’s on Rafa’s racquet… He should be flying on the wings of Stuttgart title..

    Vamooos Rafa!

    • I don’t know whether Rafa will win Queens but highly unlikely that Raonic getting back from injury is 100%. Unless Rafa wants to go on an incredible run like he did in 2013 when he tried to win everything big or small, Rafa may not even go all out to win in order to not risk injury/ fatigue before Wimbledon. If Murray is 100% he is more likely to win Queens. But he too might focus on Wimbledon especially as Djokovic is replenishing his energy.

      • Like Rafa said, one doesn’t need to play that well on grass, one only needs to serve WELL. Rafa’s problem in the last 5 years have been physical limitations, his knees and back. These problems appear to have been resolved, for now. He served very well in Stuttgart. He needs to be consistent in that regard.

        If he sees his chances are great at Queens he may forfeit the dubs like he did in Stuttgard but I do not see him forfeiting Queens to be ready for Wimby.

      • “One doesn’t need to play well on grass, one only needs to serve well.” That alone shows why “Rafa” was never truly a good grass-court player and was lucky to be born in the slow-court era or have the courts tailored that way for him. He has struggled in the first week of Wimbledon every year bar 2008.Would be nice to see knocked off yet again. A Wimbledon champion should be one who actually respects the sort of tennis that is played on it.

  5. Well for the sake of his fans I hope Rafa decides to win everything and gifts them with a grass slam! Stuttgart, Queens, Wimbledon.

  6. Hear, hear Mary!
    I’d be more than happy with ‘just’ Suttgart and Wimbledon but it would be nice indeed to get the slam.

  7. Ha ha ha!! just thought that I’d share with you that they have a poll on the Queen’s website asking who will win. You can choose from 3 people: Murray, Stan or Raonic. There’s no box for anyone else unless you click on the box marked Other. So Rafa is now in the Other category!! A bit odd also that they don’t include either last year’s winner Dimitrov, or the winner of the US Open Cilic……

  8. would fed ever be left off any website poll regardless of surface or ranking…?
    (excluding if he’d dropped down to some ridiculous level ie seeded 100)

  9. will be interesting to see if they give rafa’s ranking when they introduce the players before they come on court at the slams. when fed dropped down the rankings they stopped giving his ranking and introduced him simply as Roger Federer!!
    will they do the same with rafa ?? maybe they’ll simply refer to him ‘as the useless loser’ just to keep us all in the picture……

  10. The tennis channel was showing Hewitt/Anderson and then when Fed’s match started they switched to Halle.

    I am just grateful that there will be live coverage of Queens! So maybe I can get to see Rafa’s match as it happens!

  11. They just showed an interview with rafa. rafa said that 18 months ago he would never have believed that he could get the good feeling back in his knees. He also said that the first few months he was back this year he didn’t have confidence in his body, as a result of all the injuries before, now he was starting to get confidence in that again. I thought that was revealing…..

    • amy (at 4:37)
      —rafa said that 18 months ago he would never have believed that he could get the good feeling back in his knees—
      ===================================
      .
      18 months ago, Rafa received stem cell treatment on his left knee (below the kneecap).

      • thanks augusta. yes i think he was saying that it is as a result of this treatment that his knee is now so much better and why he now feels so much more comfortable on the grass.

  12. amy,

    So now we know what was going on with Rafa and why. So it appears that it did have a lot to do with yet another injury with the wrist and then the appendicitis. That could make any player worry about another injury at any time. That back injury seemed to come out of nowhere. Rafa played lights out in the semis against Fed at the 2014 AO and seemed primed to win the double career slam.

    I always thought it was mental and all about confidence, or the lack thereof. He’s like a different player now. Once he got past RG, it seems as though a load has been lifted off his shoulders. Also, maybe now he can trust his body to hold up.

    He’s really been through it!

    • nny, yes he looked exhausted when he was talking about the worry over his body breaking down again (he only talked about this momentarily but you could see the strain on his face even now). he has really been through the mill and we can see now what the after-effects have been like for him….

  13. Fed won the tb. We will see if Kohls is up for it in the second set.

    I am hearing that Rafa is going to play tomorrow. Do we have that confirmed?

    • nny, yes they have just confirmed he will play on centre. everyone is very excited he is back after several years away. don’t know what time he will be on though….

  14. During RG Jim Courier said that he thought that rafa had been moving badly in the previous months as a result of lack of confidence in his own body and how it would hold up after any major exertions. Rafa himself seems to be confirming this perception….

  15. they’ve just shown the schedule for tomorrow. stan and kygrios are on first on centre with rafa and dolgo on second. stan and nick are on at 1 I believe…..

  16. amy,

    I assume you mean 1:00 pm your time? I am six hours behind here on the east coast in the states. So that would be 7:00 am my time.

    I will definitely plan on recording it! The tennis channel better be showing it live!

      • Okay so the match before Rafa’s starts at 12:30 British time. That means it’s 6:30 my time. So depending how long it goes it could be as early as 8:30 or even 9:00.

        I will just set my alarm and check the program guide on the tv to see if I can record it.

    • I was thinking how happy I am that Rafa is not playing in Halle as I watched Fed and Kohls slip and slide on the grass. Kohls lost his footing and slipped and it cost him the point late in the tb. Rafa doesn’t need to be slipping and sliding on the grass.

  17. ah here we go again…..John Lloyd saying that umpires are too afraid to penalise players over the 25 second rule so there should be a clock on court…
    a. wonder who he’s not-referring to…(no names mentioned)
    b. a shot clock would be absolutely awful

    • That’s what I used to think but now I say give’em what they want.

      It would expose the rule as the true farce that it is. First you’d see an excess of penalties in at least half of the matches and then, once everyone adjusted, the quality of the game would severely suffer. (But at least the match would be 10 minutes shorter).

      #BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor

      • mmm….can you really imagine rafa dealing with the shot clock? i can’t…
        Courier was saying during RG that the 25 second rule hasn’t worked and should just be scrapped – i heartily agree….
        ridiculous that it is less in a slam when you need more time anyway, whose genius idea was that one?
        last year during wimby they had an interview with Fed where Fed started banging on about it and saying that the rule should be reduced to 10 seconds!! Tim Henman is a big chum of Fed’s and normally kowtows to what he says but even he was utterly irritated by Fed’s remarks….

      • Slams are actually 20 seconds (as opposed to 25 seconds in ATP events).

        That’s my point though. It would absolutely prove without a doubt that it is not just Rafa.

        The quality of the game would collapse.

        I would conservatively estimate that less than 20% of players would be able to stay within the time limit for 90% of the points played.

        You would see a lot of lost first serves and it would be an absolute joke.

        (But it would allow Roger to reach 20 slam titles and, when you really think about it, isn’t that all that really matters?)

      • did i mention that during RG Courier said that Fed ‘IS BIGGER THAN THE SPORT ITSELF’ so yes, i think he would agree with you..as would many others….it’s art that counts and Fed is the great artist…

      • letting that one sink in …

        BIGGER THAN THE SPORT ITSELF … 🙂 🙂

        at first, when you listen to those small words the first time it sounds like not much,
        after all EVERYONE knows this to be true

        but think about it a little longer
        and the clothes fall off the emperor
        and I have to work hard to make myself still see clothes where there are none

        ah …

        now I see …

        Tiger is bigger than the entire sport of golf
        Bolt is bigger than track and field
        Phelps is bigger than competitive swimming and Spitz
        Mirren is greater than British acting
        Oprah is greater than unreality tv shows
        Rowling is greater than literature
        Parera is greater than Manacor
        Ricky is greater than Tignor

        But I digress… 🙂

      • yes chloro, it is a trifle astonishing…or rather, as you say, it is except it isn’t as we all know fed is the master of the egotistical sublime which is always greater than the sum of its parts ergo greater than anything…..
        see you at rafa’s match tomorrow……

      • yes amy, as we all know roger’s odyssey – which gathered that huge head of steam in the years before 2005 – was not all his (ego’s) doing… equal parts at least were from the world around him that mythologized him as few sports people have been mythologized… and his ego then obliged and swelled and swelled like the frog in that story

        the boy that first came to yell that the emperor has no monogrammed clothers was… the boy from the village carrying flowers who just played his tennis game the best he knew while not yet technically very good and from the start and forever said that the emperor had no … I mean had a positive h2o I mean h2h and did other unnameable things

        ow, how the vassals and all the others cried foul, cried that the emperor did have monogrammed clothes, that the little boy did not exist, I mean, was lying, I mean this was just a temporary fluke, I mean, there has got to be an explanation, sacre bleu!, I mean…

        for bigger than the art of tennis is he the exalted one
        and nary a blemish on the sun
        nary a spot

  18. But it wouldn’t be surprising. Dimi has lot the plot this year. He’s really taken a few steps backward with his game.

    • I am a bit concerned because Dolgo can be brilliant at times, but then can be terrible. He’s got a big serve and can get on a streak. However, Rafa does know what to expect. As long as he continues with the kind of form he showed in Stuttgart, he should be okay. Dolgo’s weakness is lack of mental strength and inconsistency.

      Not the ideal first round opponent for sure, but there are so many good players these days it’s hard to avoid them all.

      • yeah, rafa should be ok as long as the heebie jeebies are gone….
        really sad news about delpo today BTW, i am a fan both of him personally and of his game…..the atp needs him to come back…..

      • that is awfully bad luck for delpo… poor man…
        and you are right about the atp

        say, amy, do you regularly stay up this late (on the other side of the pond)? I am trying to remember… I think you wrote you continue to live in England…

      • nny, so rafa is on third now?? ok will go out and come back to watch….
        chloro, haven’t had a chance to reply to your posts….yes, i am brititsh….

  19. I checked VB and they said that the Querrey/Dimitrov match was suspended with each guy having won a set. So Dimi is making a match out of it after all. But that changes the order of play for tomorrow, since their match has to resume then.

    From what I saw of the revised OOP, Rafa will now be third instead of second. If that is correct, then I should be wide awake by the time he plays!

  20. Okay, I checked online and saw that Delpo needs wrist surgery again. That’s bad news for him. I am really sorry to hear that.

  21. Krygios was a joke in that match he didn’t even try. The blistering performance he put on against Rafa at Wimbledon last has not been seen since; the same with AeRosol

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