Tokyo (Japan Open), quarterfinal, hard. Tournament is in late phase, so all players are in the good rhythm. Prizes are quite good too, but for these players its all about titles and ranking now. Both players this year are playing best tennis in career and finally wining many titles.
Adrian Mannarino (31) : Frenchman is older player, maybe not so talented like everybody else, but he plays very nice tennis at this momment. What matters now? Well, they both played few matches before this match. Adrian is good player on hard surface or grass. 21/10 score on hard, so he will improve a little for sure, few good hard surface events is in the future. Adrian can serve a good serve, he like to hit fast shots and play fast tennis. In many ways he is similar to his opponent in this match.
Sugita Yuichi (40) - Player from Japan, who is playing very solid tennis this year, he managed to win ATP title and few Challenger titles in this season. We see he improved his game in all ways. Yuichi isn't very tall, but he have good qualities for hard surface without his height. He can hit good serve, good forehand and backhand, he like to play agressive, but he can play good defense on baseline. Most important his quality is his speed, he is very fast and that helps him a lot, he can catch any shot everywhere. Also his brain works really fast, he works fast on hitting balls, finding right position.
In the end - Both players are in good shape, maybe Mannarino played more game's in matches and he is worth to get in next round, but Yuichi is playing at home and he won't give up easy. I think we will see a 3 set's match.
WTA Beijing, semifinal, hard. Very late rounds with only strong players left, but at this moment i think Simona Halep is much better player and with more energy and motivation. Jelena is playing great too, but she is in strange position, she played to many events in Asia i guess.
Simona Halep (2) - Second in the ranking, romanian girl is very good tennis player, even if she is short and not so strong she can play really well on all surfaces and defeat all other players. Talented player from Romania is very dangerous, she can mix up her game really good, one second Simona can be agressive, other second she can use a deffensive tactics. 18/9 hard surface record for this year, she lost many matches in first phase of season, so now she is playing really well.
Jelena Ostapenko (8) - She's from Latvia and she is very young only 20 years old. We all was suprised then she won Rolland Garros title against Simona Halep in the final. Year by year she had different situations in tennis, she was very confused, angry, but now she is in perfect shape, she have best tennis year so far. 21/10 hard surface balance at this moment, she already won one title in Asia and she is reaching for second one. One thing not so long ago she had mental brake down in few matches.
In the end - I guess Simona is more fresh at this moment, she made revenge against Sharapova, Kasatkina and i think now is time for Ostapenko.
Shanghai Masters tournament is just started and we have first round over there. A lot of players who want to win ang get big prizes and many points.
Tsitsipas Stefanos (115) - Youngster from Greece is in the highest ranking spot of his life, but little by little he is still going up. Tall player with great serve, great thinking and talent can play very well, still he need to improve, youngster style of tennis won't be successful all the time. 13/7 w/l record on hard surface this year, nothing impressive yet, he reached only one SF in challenger, but it's not his surface, if we look at other results, Stefanos is very succesull on clay courts. He came to main draw after beating Q round.
Karen Kachanov (42) - Russian player who can serve really good hits, he is with powerfull forehand and good physical state. Karen is tall player, who knows how to play good tennis, he can compete with all players like Rafael Nadal, Tomas Berdych, but now he struggles a lot and i dont know why. 9/12 this year balance on hard sufrace and for now it is negative.
In the end : I guess they both are in different level, but at this moment they can both compete at good level. I think they will use theirs good serve to collect points and that most important thing for betting over.
Shanghai Masters is in second round, bigger prizes and bigger motivation. China masters tournament is very prestigious, but he is in the end of the season, so many players just can't compete at high level, so we won't see good matches all the way.
Richard Gasquet (30) - Not so long ago Frenchman won his challenger title. He played maybe not the best tennis, but it was enough for sure. Now he is back on Asia tour and he is playing very different tennis match by match, i guess he is improving.
Richard is not so tall, but he have a good serve, good backhand and good strategy. Main qualities of Richard is his head, he thinks very well, his shots are near perfection, especially from the onehanded backhand. Frenchman have 10/6 record on hard surface this year.
Chung Hyeon (60) - 21 years old South Korean, who can play really good tennis on court, but his life make a lot of difficulties for him. He likes to be at home, sometimes he even go to the army for his duty or university, tennis is not priority for him.
Still Korean is very talented player, he can serve good, his forehand very strong, Chung have a lot of good qualities for tennis. 16/11 this year on hard court surface.
In the end - I think this match will be very hard for Korean, he played easy first match and won without struggles, but it was first match in a while and that is bad thing. Why? Well, he isn't in his best shape, he need more practice and matches to play good, i think this match will be very hard for him.
Ortissei Challenger and round of 16. Bet365 gives us a very nice odds and line of over.. Maybe they are sleeping. Two good Frenchamns indoors players will meet here.
Kenny De Scheeper (157) - This Frenchman is also out of top 100 bounds, why? We can't say for sure, he played really good tennis last year, but this year he just can't compete with youngsters. Two metres tall player can hit very good serve and catch all lobs over his had, he is also quite good at net. This year he is mostly playing on challenger level and have 32/29 match summary. Maybe he didn't work enough on his physic state and we can see he runs to slow for fast tennis. 17/9 balanace on indoors hard courts.
Herbert Pierre(86) – Tall French player, who mostly finds himself in doubles with his partner Nicolas Mahut, but some time like this he also plays on singles tournaments, after winning qualification round he will meet American. Herbert is mostly known for his height and big serve, on fast court he is very dangerous, he like to serve and volley, he can run really fast, his technique quite good, he have all the qualities to be a good player, but somehow he manages to be in second half of top100.8/4 score on indoor hard this year, not much, but in his all career he have only 139/74 score, like we said, he don’t play often in singles. Still player is dangerous, most important thing to win in Frenchman play is serve and fast shots.
In the end - I expect nothing but over in this match, two great servers with good serve and volley tactics must play at least one TB in match.
Shanghai Masters tournament have reached it QF rounds and now stakes are really high. Players will get more than 100 grands and 180 ranking points. For many players it really nice deal and they will try even harder to reach Semis.
Richard Gasquet (30) - Not so long ago Frenchman won his challenger title. He played maybe not the best tennis, but it was enough for sure. Now he is back on Asia tour and he is playing very different tennis match by match, i guess he is improving.
Richard is not so tall, but he have a good serve, good backhand and good strategy. Main qualities of Richard is his head, he thinks very well, his shots are near perfection, especially from the onehanded backhand. Frenchman have 12/6 record on hard surface this year.
Roger Federer (2) - Maestro is still in very good shape this year, coming back to top 4 was big goal and he made it, now becoming No.1 in world is near to. It is like time machine for us, then Roger and Rafa was in the top. Maestro started this tournament without any struggles and he won easy ,we believe he is in good shape, he just need more time to be in best shape after Laver cup. Some people says Roger is better than few years, i can agree with it. Player from Switzerland plays very good tennis, he is still enjoyning it and playing like fresh player, but with all experience he is even more dangerous. Don‘t forget after long years waiting he already won two Grand Slam titles this year. Hunting for No.1 he will play even better than usual, it is his dream we can say, to be once more no.1.
In the end - I guess we will see Roger in good shape, but Richard Gasquet atfter so many hard matches won't give up easily and he will try to bite. In one way Maestro will try to play confidedent style of tennis, one break and just keep his games safe. He won't push to much, so there is a big chance we will over 20 game's. Next thing Roger can make Gasqet run a lot or give him a set after that he won't be abel to compete.
This one's always been an easy match up for Federer over the years as he enjoys an unassailable 16-2 H2H record against Gasquet.
Gasquet has beaten Federer once every 8 matches and Federer is currently on an 8-match winning run against the Frenchman.
Federer has been utterly dominant over Gasquet as he has lost just 6 sets in those 18 meetings. They met once in Hopman Cup earlier this year and Federer won 6-1 6-4.
Anything less than the title here at Shanghai for Federer will make it easier for Nadal to end the year as Number 1.
Federer and Nadal have zero points to defend for rest of the year and there's still 4000 points available for the taking. The difference between the duo is 2370 pts
Since Wimbledon 2016, Gasquet has retired three times but he looks to be in a better shape now as he has played three 3-set matches this week, winning all of them.
With the QF win against Dimitrov, Rafael Nadal ties Andre Agassi for 6th player with most ATP wins (870).
Nadal dominated Cilic in their only meeting this season (6-1 6-2 @ Acapulco). Cilic was going through a bad period at the time as he went on to lose to Fritz and Chardy in his next two matches.
Nadal and Cilic were broken just once this week (Dimitrov & Ramos). Cilic has played 2 tie breakers and won both, while Nadal has played 1 and lost it.
All the players that has beaten Nadal on hard court this season (except Federer and Shapovalov) are tall and big-servers. Isner 2.08 m, Querrey 1.99 m, Kyrgios 1.93 m and Raonic 1.96 m. Cilic is 1.98 m and can serve big as he has shown by firing 28 aces this week.
Nadal comfortably leads the H2H 4-1 but Cilic has won their only Asian meeting (6-1 6-3 @ Beijing 2009).
Nadal is now 52-1 after winning first set in the QFs of an ATP Masters event, only loss came at Indian Wells against the big serving Milos Raonic in 2015.
Del Potro could be forced out of his Shanghai Masters semi-final on Saturday after falling and hurting his wrist during his QF win over Troicki.
Winning the title here would boost Del Potro's chances of making it to the ATP Finals at London, which will be an incredible achievement considering the fact he was ranked outside 1000 nearly 23 months back.
Irrespective of the result he'll get against Federer, Del Potro will be a Top 20 player next week.
Speaking after his win against Troicki, Del Potro said "I felt something wrong in that moment but I continued to play with slices to try to finish the match, Of course I would like to play, I would like to be 100 percent, but we will see in a moment what's happened."
By reaching the SFs this week, Federer has ensured Rafael Nadal cannot be guaranteed the Year End No. 1 this week.
Federer leads the H2H 16-6 but Del Potro won their most recent meeting (7-5 3-6 7-6 6-4 @ US Open 2017).
Stockholm ATP250 Event, good event with many good and not the best players here. First round will show us who is ready to play and who came for fun.
Struff Jan-Lennard (58) - German guy came here from China tour and now he is playing well, he even won against Anderson Kevin. Lenard is tall guy with great serve, strong attacking shots and he really likes to play strong tennis with his powerfull shots. Lenanrd mostly is playing on clay courts and that is very strange, because he is tall and not so clay style player. On the other side he can be very good on fast courts like in this tournament. 5/3 balance on indoors courts this year.
Copil Marius (75) - Player from Romania, who recently became a good ATP tour level player. Not so long ago Marius played on challenger level, he played there good, but still he never played good enough for ATP tour. Now Romanian is quite good player, with decent mentallity and tennis skills, he can hit good serve, good forehand and he is quite talented.
In the end : Match can be very tricky, but i think one of players will be more ready and more motivated for this match. h2h is showing us a lot of unders in their matches, so i think its going to be same like always.
