Monte Carlo quarter-finals preview

Events / Editor / 20 April 2007 / Leave a Comment

David Ferrer caused a surprise at the Monte Carlo Masters event on Thursday, when he beat rising star Novak Djokovic to book his place in the quarter-finals.

Ferrer, 12th seed, outplayed the sixth seed Serbian 7-5 6-4 to earn his dubious reward. World number one Roger Federer is waiting for him in the last eight and the Swiss ace is on the brink of win number 500 on the pro circuit.

Ferrer's win avenged his Indian Wells quarter-final defeat by Djokovic and ended the 19-year-old's eight match winning run.
Federer is working his way back to top form after his surprise back-to-back defeats in the Indian Wells and Miami Masters, beaten on both occasions by Guillermo Canas in the second round and the last 16 respectively.

The Swiss ace reached the last eight with a 6-4 6-3 win over Koren Hyung-Taik Lee in 65 minutes to chalk up win number 499.
But Federer wasn't totally happy, admitting: "I think it was an average match from my side. I was really struggling with the conditions. Maybe it was just my timing in the beginning.

"I was just shanking a lot of balls and not able to keep the ball in play. But I never felt worried too much, which is a good sign, especially early in the clay-court season."

Federer and Ferrer, who missed last week's hometown Valencia event with a shoulder injury, have met five times before and the FedEx has won them all, including three wins last year. In fact, Federer won 6-3 6-4 in the quarter-finals of this Monte Carlo event last year and so, not surprisingly, he is trading at 1.23 to win in the second quarter-final. Punters who fancy an upset, with Federer not at the peak of his form, can back Ferrer at 5.1 to reach the last four.

Federer is chasing his seventh different ATP Masters title - a feat so far only achieved by Andre Agassi. Federer has a total of 12 ATP Masters titles, as he closes in on the record of 17 held by Asassi.
The other match in the top half of the draw sees 16th seed Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain face the 11th seed, Frenchman Richard Gasquet.

Gasquet upset the seeding by toppling seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 6-3 6-7 7-5, but it took him 2hrs 50 min which followed up his 3hrs 20 min opener against Fernando Verdasco. Ferrero disposed of Russian Igor Andreev 6-3 6-3.
Ferrero is trading at 2.2 to make the most of the Frenchman's long matches and edge out Gasquet (1.82) in their first meeting on the ATP Tour.

Tenth seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic starts the action against Sweden's dangerous Robin Soderling. The unseeded Soderling reached the last eight with a 7-6 6-2 win over Max Mirnyi of Belarus, while Berdych had to come from behind to beat sixth seed Tommy Robredo 1-6 6-3 6-2.

Berdych and Soderling have met three times and the 6ft 3in Swede leads 2-1. Berdych, who is 6ft 5in, won their first encounter in Rotterdam in 2005 in straight sets but Soderling won both last year's meetings. All three contests were straight-set affairs on hard courts but this is their first meeting on the slower clay. Berdych had a win/loss record of 14-7 on clay last year to Soderling's 9-6.
But unseeded Soderling, who knocked out third seed Nikolay Davydenko in three sets in the second round, is in form and is trading at 2.4 on Betfair to go through against Berdych (1.7), who is in the quarters in Monte Carlo for the first time.

The remaining quarter-final leaves qualifier Philipp Kohlschreiber with the onerous task of trying to topple second seed and defending champion Rafael Nadal.

The German scraped past lucky loser Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 5-7 7-6 7-6 to earn his crack at the Spaniard, who will be 21 during his French Open title defence.

Nadal had no such trouble in disposing of Kristof Vliegen, the 6ft 4in Belgian, 6-1 6-1 and is as short as 1.01 to reach the last four, while the French Open champion can be backed at 1.13 to win without dropping a set. In fact, he has only dropped six games in his first two matches in taking his record winning streak on clay to 64.

But Nadal has met Kohlschreiber, who's a massive 50 to beat the Spaniard, just once - in the Australian Open in January when he was worked hard and needed four sets to win.

Nadal's target is a hat-trick of Monte Carlo titles and no-one has done that since Ilie Nastase in 1973. Speaking after his win over Vliegen, Nadal said: "I'm happy with my level of play. I played very good forehands and backhands and served better."

A final repeat between Nadal and Federer is still on the cards and nobody would rule it out. Nadal is the 1.54 favourite to take the title, with the world number one available to back at 3.6.