Players Under the Microscope / / 15 August 2007 /

Perfecseun sheds some light on two players who have overcome injury and loss of form in recent times to be back to their best

Last week I wrote about Radek Stepanek as the player to follow and he indeed was, until he met Federer. The Czech is nicely on the pace of the bonus standings in the US Open series. Stepanek is currently 3rd, 5 points behind the leader Djokovic, and 2 points behind second placed Roddick. The incentive that awaits is double prize money at the US Open for the series winner.

Stepanek faces Ferrer in one of the first matches today. I am going to stick with the Czech player as Ferrer has not done anything much lately apart from see off huge serving newcomer, John Isner. The pair have met 2 times, and head-to-head reads 1-1 with Ferrer winning the last one at the Australian Open in 5 sets. Stepanek is in fine form and he has played better opposition (Haas, Gonzalez, Davydenko, Blake)and won most compared to Ferrer who is playing his second hard court tournament since 5th of March this year.

I have to mention Jürgen Melzer as well. The Austrian is coming back into the fold after an injury lay-off and he is looking good so far. In Montreal, he did pretty well against James Blake although he lost in 2 sets, the match was a close one. This week, he has defeated Karlovic, who was a semifinalist at Washington a couple of weeks back, and he did not drop his serve in beating the huge serving Croatian.

Melzer faces in Ancic another player who is coming back from injury and the Austrian´s return game should see him through this match if he holds his own serve, as he has done against Blake and Karlovic.

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