Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 26 May 2007 /

The French Open gets under way on Sunday and Radek Stepanek gets the chance to cause one of the Championship's first upsets, when he faces Australian Open runner-up Fernando Gonzalez in the men's singles first round.

The Czech number two, behind Tomas Berdych in the rankings, may only have one title to his name but he is still a man capable of causing an upset.

The 28-year-old, who now lives in Monaco, was a force to be reckoned with this time last year as he headed towards a career best number eight in the world rankings. Since then his form has dipped and he has slipped down to number 57, but that doesn't mean Gonzalez will underestimate him.

He was good enough to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals before losing to Jonas Bjorkman but that showing on grass helped catapult him to that career-high ranking before a back injury while practising in Toronto in August, put him out for the rest of the year.

That was a frustrating time for a player who had begun the year by winning his first ATP singles title in Rotterdam - beating Christophe Rochus after putting out Fabrice Santoro, Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko on the way to the final.

He came within one win of another title at the Hamburg Masters before losing to Tommy Robredo in the final in straight sets.

His best effort to date this year came at the Miami Masters, when he reached the last 16 before losing to Robredo again. But the clay court season has not brought the success of last year, when he had a 12-5 record on a surface which doesn't really faavour his big-serving game.
He was sixth in the list of ace makers last season with 30 and might well have been a lot closer to leader Karlovic's 57 if he had played beyond August. On top of that, he was ninth in the list of big servers at 137mph - no wonder he says his serve is his best shot.
But he needs to get it working well at Roland Garros. In recent weeks, in fact not since Miami has he gone beyond the last 32 in any tournament and went out in the first round in Hamburg last week.

Stepanek is also an accomplished doubles player and has already won 12 titles, two of them last year in Marseille and Dubai in partnership with fellow Czech Martin Damm.

Stepanek and Gonzo have met just once, three years ago, with the 26-year-old from Chile winning 6-3 6-4 on clay in the World Team Cup in Dusseldorf.

Stepanek is trading at 5.1 with Betfair to score a knockout against Gonzalez (1.23) and earn a great chance to make progress through to a potential last 16 clash with clay court dangerman Guillermo Canas or 11th seed Frenchman Richard Gasquet.

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