After yesterday's shambles, the mood in the Calvert household was dark to say the least and I needed a decent start to the day today in order to harbour any hopes of a profit from the weeks activities.
The weather in Sweden was pretty foul, so the first matches of the day took place over on the clay of Gstaad and Paul-Henri Mathieu got proceedings off to a good start... eventually. The Frenchman sneaked through in a third set tie break against Feliciano Lopez and in the quarter finals it's the nightmare scenario of a match against Gael Monfils. I really am starting to lose patience with Monfils, as he is certainly in my view the most frustrating, unpredictable player on tour to bet on or against. I can just hope that he has one his off days tomorrow. I wouldn't want to bet on it though, but should Mathieu prevail I would fancy him to take out either Stepanek or Gicquel in the semi-finals.
Advancing at the same time as Mathieu was Igor Andreev, who cruised through his last 16 encounter with Potito Starace in straight sets to set up an attractive looking quarter final match up with bookies favourite Richard Gasquet. Andreev has a 2-1 career advantage over the Frenchman, but Gasquet appears to have finally found the consistent form that his talent has long promised and he will be a very tough obstacle for the Russian to overcome. Similarly to Mathieu, I would strongly fancy Andreev to reach the final if he can get past Gasquet, with Andreas Seppi and Martin Vassallo Arguello contesting the other quarter.
Over in Sweden, the rain prevented any play until well after lunch and Carlos Moya looked impressive in a straight sets dismissal of Thomas Johansson and earned favouritism from a number of layers. Somewhat surprisingly, Juan Monaco was defeated in straight sets by Gilles Simon and this has surely left the path clear for David Ferrer to advance to the final in the bottom half of the draw.
My interest, however still lies in the top half and disappointingly Fernando Verdasco was turned over in a third set breaker by home favourite Robin Soderling after leading 3-0 in the set. I was hoping for a Verdasco v Almagro semi final, but the top half now looks very competitive indeed and all my hopes in this tournament now lie solely with Nicolas Almagro, who takes on Horna tomorrow. The good thing about this tournament is that most matches are live on Betfair and this is essential to gauge form, as opposed to Gstaad and Newport where I'm relying on stats. We all know that stats don't lie, but they don't tell the whole truth.
Nicolas Mahut continued his march toward the Newport final over on the grass in Rhode Island with a patchy (from what I can tell) three set victory over veteran Antony Dupuis and now will take on one of either Prakash Amritraj (467 in the world) or Scoville Jenkins (367 in the world) in the quarter's with the prospect of a semi against either veteran Belgian beanpole Dick Norman or Fish's conqueror Qureshi. Mahut will want to take a long hard look at himself if he can't reach the final against this lot.
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