Sufficient is it for me to say that the Calvert nails will be in a very sorry state by the end of the week if I have too many more days like today.
My morning got off to the worst possible start, when I decided most unwisely to place my faith in the questionable skills of Jose Acasuso at 1-2 over on the clay of Stuttgart. Once more I was fooled into: a) assuming that Acasuso was about to enter a hot streak and b) underestimating Austrian journeyman Stefan Koubek. Both of these ideas proved to be unwise and I was a couple of points down early doors when Koubek won in straight sets.
Annoyed by this I then relied on a five point single in the form of Marc Gicquel to take care of Belgian qualifier and number 297 in the world Steve Darcis. This was Darcis' first match at tour level this season and that form was clearly too good for Gicquel, who went out in straight sets.
So, seven points down and struggling badly. Who could I find to lift me out of the mire? Well, certainly not Nicolas Almagro. I had a two point bet on Werner Eschauer at 6-4 to take out the moody Spaniard, whose demeanour I figured wouldn't be the best after his thrashing in the Bastad final by Ferrer on Sunday. Thankfully for my sanity, the Austrian prevailed in straight sets and I was back on track.
The one that I really fancied today was Feliciano Lopez to defeat Carlos Berlocq at decent odds of 4-5, but dear god, I was made to suffer with this fixture. Lopez lost the opener on a tie break and seeing his price drift out to 15-8 I had another point on to add to my original three, as the match was extremely close and I still fancied Lopez to do the business. He did, but it wasn't pleasant viewing, as my man had to come back from match point down in the second set on a number of occasions; finally running out the winner 6-4 in the decider.
I had clawed my way back from potential disaster and I had to find a wager to lift me back into the black for the week and my choice for this task was my outside bet for the Countrywide Classic - Radek Stepanek. On paper a first round match up against Alex Bogdanovic should be about as comfortable a first round match as the Czech player could have hoped for and so it proved, with the Brit retiring after a 6-1 loss in the first set.
On the plus side today, Juan Monaco started his campaign in positive fashion with an easy straight sets victory over Jan Hernych for the loss of just three games and Dmitry Tursunov was also a straight sets winner late last night over in LA, so I have a couple of representatives in the second round. Janko Tipsarevic was beaten easily by Igor Andreev in Amersfoot, so I'm left with just a small wager on the Russian to hang onto in Holland.
Elsewhere, top seeds Gonzalez (LA) and Davydenko (Amersfoot) disappeared in the first round, as did Nalbandian (LA).
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