Hamburg quarter-final preview

Events / Editor / 18 May 2007 / Leave a Comment

Rafael Nadal can stretch his winning streak to an incredible 80 matches on clay - but only if he gets the better of Fernando Gonzalez in Germany.

The French Open champion meets the fifth-seed again in the Hamburg Masters quarter-finals as he bids to become the first player in Masters history to win all three European claycourt events in one year, after his victories in Monte Carlo and Rome.
The young Spaniard, who will be 20 in the middle of the French Open, is trading at 1.52 with Betfair to make it a Masters clean sweep.

His winning run on clay dates back to Valencia in 2005 and the man who beat him then - Russian Igor Andreev - was his victim in the third round as second seed Nadal surged through to the last eight 6-4 6-1.

Only two players have won the three Masters titles on clay - Marcelo Rios and Gustavo Kuerten - but neither of them managed it in the same year.

Nadal just loves the Masters series. He has reached the quarter-finals or better in all nine of the events he has contested.
The Spanish sensation will go in against Gonzalez full of confidence as he beat the Chilean in two sets in their most recent meeting, last weekend in the Rome Masters final. 'Gonzo' (9.2 to reach the semi-finals) had to come from a set down on Thursday before beating Austrian Jurgen Melzer 3-6 6-3 6-4.

Although Gonzalez leads Nadal 3-2 in head-to-head meetings, he has only beaten the Spanish ace once on clay and that was in their first meeting back in 2003. His best win came in the Australian Open quarter-finals when he beat Nadal in straight sets - but that was on hard courts and came on the back of Nadal's marathon battle with Britain's Andy Murray.

Roger Federer, who has hit something of a depression, lifted himself out of the doldrums Thursday with a confidence-boosting straight sets win over Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-2 6-3.

The world number one is first into action on Friday afternoon at an event he has won three times and his quarter-final opponent is another Spaniard, David Ferrer. That should suit Federer - he has met Ferrer six times and has never dropped a set to him.
Ferrer, however, put out seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic 6-3 6-3 in the third round and is now in the last eight for the third time in four years. On top of that, Spain have four of the eight quarter-finalists, just as they did in 2001 when Albert Portas went on to win the title against Ferrero.

Federer, 1.14 to beat Ferrer and 3.85 to win the title, admitted on Thursday that he 'needs wins right now' as he looks to rebuild confidence. He should manage that against 12th seed Ferrer and the reward should he win, is likely to be a clash with 19-year-old Serbian ace Novak Djokovic.

The Miami Masters winner faces unseeded Carlos Moya in the second quarter-final and the fourth seed is trading at 1.37 on Betfair to make the semi-finals, despite taking three sets to overcome Finland's Jarkko Nieminen 7-5 4-6 6-4.

Djokovic, who will be 20 on Tuesday, has won his only meeting with the 30-year-old - 6-1 7-5 in Umag (Croatia) last year, but Moya (3.6 to win the quarter-final) should not be underestimated. He has after all won 19 career titles to Djokovic's five and Moya's third-round win over James Blake ended a four-match losing run against the American.

Lleyton Hewitt (2.5 to reach the last four) takes on Nicolas Almagro in the other quarter-final, after the Aussie knocked out third seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, 6-4 2-6 6-4, to claim his first top ten win of the year. It was also his first win over a top 10 opponent on clay since beating Moya at the World Team Cup in May 2003.

The 16th seed takes on unseeded Almagro for the first time. It is Hewitt's first clay court quarter-final since the 2004 French Open but Almagro, world number 52, is trading at 1.65 with Betfair to get the better of the Australian.