ATP Masters Madrid - The story so far

The temperature in the race for the final available berths for the end of season jolly in Shanghai was raised a couple of notches in Madrid this week and that combined with competing at altitude in Europe's highest capital led to a flurry of early casualties.

With half of the places already allocated and another two appearing reserved for Roddick and Ferrer, the remaining positions could conceivably be taken by anyone currently in the top twenty, bar the injured Lleyton Hewitt, so close are the players in the rankings.

The top 16 seeded competitors all received byes into the second round and many will now wish they hadn't, as 10 of them went out in the second round and another, Nikolay Davydenko, retired through injury.

All of which leaves the week's most impressive performer thus far, Andy Murray, in with an outside chance of reaching Shanghai and a great chance of revenge over Rafael Nadal tonight in what promises to be a classic encounter.

With so many of his rivals faltering, if Murray does overcome Nadal et al it is conceivable that he would move into the top 10 with two tournaments left in which to accrue ranking points. The manner of his two victories this week suggests that after a difficult rehabilitation from a wrist injury, he is now at peak fitness and crucially the forehand is back in business, as Stepanek and Chela will testify.

Sky's commentator-less interactive coverage combined with a distinct lack of spectators on Court Alcala this week has meant that every exchange between players and officials could be heard in full and there have been a few feisty incidents of note this week.

First to lose the plot was (not for the first time) Jurgen Melzer in his first round match with Ginepri. After cruising the first set against a slow starting Ginepri, Melzer was on the receiving end of some questionable calls and went into meltdown in the second set breaker after a poor overrule from the umpire gave Ginepri an unassailable advantage.

Melzer's racquet bore the brunt and bizarrely he tried to fix it whilst Ginepri was waiting to serve and the Austrian received a code violation for time wasting, at which point I genuinely believed that Melzer was about to burst into tears. Instead, he lost the set and went for a lengthy comfort break before losing the match in a third set which saw almost constant muttering and complaining from one of a band of temperamental Austrian players. Compatriot, Stafan Koubek was thrown out of a tournament recently for similar antics.

American, Mardy Fish, was next to have Sky reaching for the mute button, as he threatened to "kick his (Paul-Henri Mathieu's) fu***ng ass" in an unusual altercation during the second set of their first round encounter.

After winning the first set, the Frenchman was a couple of breaks down in the second set when he took what Fish perceived to be a tactical injury timeout and the players came together, alongside the umpire at the net after Mathieu had disputed a line call.

Fish's expletive ridden tirade was mainly to the umpire, who tried unsuccessfully to defend Mathieu's sportmanship and the Frenchman wisely retreated to the baseline to lose the set, but take the match in the decider.

On the betting front, successful wagers on Murray (twice), Ancic, Nalbandian and Del Potro led to a handy profit, which was somewhat dented by Gasquet's loss to Mathieu yesterday.

I'm going to have an interest in Murray, Ancic and possibly Nalbandian today and my main investments this week, rather unoriginally on Federer and Henin, play their respective matches today also.