[Wittmann 44]

From Bucharest tomorrow

Starace-Hanescu

Home town boy Hanescu gets the chance to repeat his beating of Starace first round in Bucharest in 2005. That was however in much different circumstances. Hanescu was coming off a QF in Roland Garros and nearing his highest ranking of 37. Starace was stuck outside the top 100. 2 years later and Hanescu’s back injury in early 2006 kept him out of the game for almost 5 months and he has never really recovered. Starace beat him easily 2 & 3 in the Lugano challenger in June this year and the Italian has kicked on this year in a major way with Finals in Austria & Valencia and a win in the big San Marino Challenger. Hanescu has been trawling (and doing well) in the smaller challengers but his lack of play at ATP level is highlighted by a W5 L12 record since 2006 with one of the victories a retirement and another over Martin Verkerk. Starace easily beat another Romanian yesterday and should have an equally comfortable time today.

2 Units Starace @ 1.66


Monfils-Gicquel

Monfils leads the h to h 4-3 here but has won 3 of the last 4. He also boasts a much better reord at the business end of ATP events – he is W7 L3 at the QF stage with excellent wins over Safin, Tursonov and Roddick (*2) amongst those – Gicquel is W3 L5 with two of those wins in France. Gicquel who is 30 ploughed the Challenger field for a long time before making some minor ATP headway in 2005 on. His ranking is starting to slide now so he will be desperate to do well here but he looks outclassed here. Monfils had to come through qualifying here (why I cannot fathom) so fatigue is a concern but I’m still inclined to think his power will be too much.

2 Units Monfils @ 1.46

Simon-Armando

Despite being 29 and a veteran this will only be Armando’s 2nd ATP career QF – the last was in 2004 and he lost that and the previous one. This is very much a career on the fringes. You have to go back to 2001 (over 20 games) to find the last time that he beat a current top 50 player – it is something he has only managed 4 times from 27 tries almost all on what is supposedly his best surface. Simon has had a solid if unspectacular year on his first full ATP year with a SF in Croatia the highlight. His game is Canas-lite with solidity from the baseline a key. The Frenchman is operateing at a significantly higher level than Armando and with a very open draw (Berlocq/Schuklin in his half) he must fancy his chances of at least making the final here.

2 Units Simon @ 1.42


From Bali

Errani-Nakamura

I’m going to side with Errani here. I know she is a clay courter but I wouldn’t be too convinced by Nakamura at 1.60 even if this is a surface and a venue she should be much more comfortable on. Errani did very well to take out Amamurdova (despite being two breaks down final set) first round and followed up with an equally solid 3 set win over Garrigues. Nakamura came through with difficulty against Tansanguran first round and with less fuss in the second round but I’m thinking she is underpriced here.

1 Unit Risked Lay Nakamura @ 1.60