Jose Acasuso, Igor Andreev and Tommy Haas. What a trio to have your faith and cash tied up in. It's a bit like waiting for a cheque to turn up 'in the post', betting on any of these three characters; you'd like to think it would turn up and then curse your own naivety when it inevitably doesn't.
Frustrating Argentine, Acasuso, hadn't reached a tour level quarter-final for three months until today, when he reached that stage with a straight sets dismissal of fellow countryman, Sergio Roitman and gave me the opportunity to lay my original bet off and therefore reduce the undoubted pain of watching one of his matches. Acasuso has three ATP titles to his name, but at the moment is in severe danger of dropping out of the top 100 and having to qualify for tournaments in future. He needs a good run here and in Montreal to avert that possibility and I am hoping that this will be his motivation for success in Poland this week. He will next face off against Florian Mayer in a match that may well involve a choke or two with these guys as the participants.
Still on Poland's red dirt, my bottom half of the draw bets are still looking good, as Igor Andreev progressed to the quarters in straight sets this afternoon against local favourite Michal Przysiezny and set himself up with a clash with Gilles Simon, against whom the Russian has never played in a tour event. Andreev will start favourite though and a win might set up a dream semi-final with Steve Darcis. It doesn't pay to get ahead of oneself though, as Darcis has a tough match with Robredo in the morning.
In the US capital, Tim Henman went on to lose his first rounder with American giant, John Isner and I fear for his top 100 place, with Tim being just a single place above Acasuso at 73 in the rankings and on the slide.
Tommy Haas finally begins his campaign in the early hours against Alajandro Falla and I hear that the German is fit and ready to go in this event. There again, I've heard that before...is that the doorbell? That's got to be the postman surely..no?
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