Americans Sam Querrey and John Isner will kick off their Shanghai campaigns on Monday. They are set for respective meetings with Tommy Haas and Santiago Giraldo.
Sam Querrey vs. (11) Tommy Haas
Querrey and Haas will be going head-to-head for the sixth time in their careers and for the first time in more than four years when they clash in round one of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Monday. After Haas won a trio of 2007 encounters, Querrey prevailed twice in 2009; 7-6(4), 6-4 indoors in Memphis and 6-3, 7-5 at the now-defunct Los Angeles event. They have split their four hard-court encounters.
Haas may be slowing down just a bit at the end of an outstanding season. The 35-year-old German boasts a 41-19 record, but he lost to Mikhail Youzhny in the U.S. Open third round and dropped his Beijing opener last week to Lleyton Hewitt. Querrey’s trajectory is of a somewhat opposite nature. The 30th-ranked American had been slumping for much of his 2013 campaign, but he reached the semis in Winston-Salem and scored two recent wins over Youzhny and Stanislas Wawrinka en route to the Beijing quarterfinals. While Querrey can win this if he serves extremely well, Haas is superior all-court player even when not at his very best.
Pick: Haas in 3
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(14) John Isner vs. (Q) Santiago Giraldo
Isner and Giraldo will be squaring off for the second time in their careers on Monday. Their only previous collision came three years ago on the clay courts of Madrid, where Isner posted a 1-6, 7-6(6), 6-2 comeback victory. The 6’10” American is rarely in peak form outside of the United States, so a quarterfinal finish last week in Beijing is actually an impressive result by his foreign-tournament standards. Isner, who beat Di Wu and Roberto Bautista Agut before falling to Tomas Berdych, is 36-21 for the season.
Giraldo has already done well to earn a spot in the main draw, having gotten past Hiroki Moriya and Lukasz Kubot in qualifying. The 87th-ranked Colombian is a disappointing 15-23 at the ATP level in 2013 and he has not won a tournament main-draw match since Atlanta at the start of the U.S. Open Series. Giraldo was dealt a terrible hand in Beijing, where he lost to eventual runner-up and soon-to-be world No. 1 Rafael Nadal in the first round. Isner is always vulnerable away from home, but his serve and forehand should be too much for this opponent on a hard court.
Pick: Isner in 3
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Giraldo handled the Isner serve, when it wasn’t an ace’ amazingly well. Isner only just got through. Giraldo cracked at the last moment.
Isner served 29 aces, that’s a set, a free set…………that’s why I just do not want him anywhere near Rafa, such an effort keeping concentrated…
Yes I want Isner out before he could meet Rafa.
You can almost touch the glee in the following tweet, can’t you?
RT @SI_BTBaseline: “Next up for Isner is Carlos Berlocq. A win and he could get a shot at Rafael Nadal. #atp”
Isner has come a long way since the days when like 90% of points won were with an ace. But I still find the dependence on aces make most of his matches rather tedious to watch – except when he plays Nadal when they become nail-bitingly stressful.
I would feel a lot less anxious if Rafa’s serve had not gone off the boil. This has to be the direct result of fatigue from his Herculean efforts this year.
#WaitingForAnotherMiracle
Off topic: Federer is clearly enjoying playing doubles with Zhang. Maybe he’ll take some confidence from demolishing Tursonov and Anderson!
I’m sure Fed will “turn back time” in his first round or two.
#SameOld
Haas through
#NID