Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 13 March 2007 /

CARLOS MOYA is one of three unseeded players through to today and tomorrow's round of the last 16 at the Masters Series opener, the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells.

The Spaniard is probably a little surprised to find himself there after a first glance at the draw. He would probably have expected Roger Federer to have knocked him out in the third round.

But Federer's unexpected exit against Guillermo Canas left Moya, in turn, to knock out the player from Argentina in straight sets and book a clash with fellow Spaniard and 14th seed David Ferrer.

It will be a David and Goliath clash with Moya holding a six-inch height advantage at 6ft 3in. He also holds a 5-1 head-to-head edge as well, one of which came at the 2005 Indian Wells tournament, with Ferrer's only win coming last year when they clashed at the Masters event in Cincinatti.

Since then Ferrer has climbed to 15 in the world while Moya is back at number 36. Betfair are trading at 2.22 on 30-year-old Moya to rediscover that winning formula, with his Spanish compatriot the favourite to progress at 1.79.

The man from Palma, Mallorca, turned pro in 1995 - five years before Ferrer - and is now approaching the veteran stage of his career, although he has the distinction of winning an ATP title every year in the last seven.

He has claimed 19 career titles and has won $19m in prize money but the last two years have been sparse in terms of title wins. He won in Chennai in 2005, beating Thailander Paradorn Srichapan, and Buenos Aires in 2006, beating Filippo Volandri in the final.

After that Chennai win he donated his prize money to the Tsunami relief fund. But his bid to make it three Chennai titles in a row last year failed at the final hurdle when beaten by top seed Ivan Ljubicic.

So far this year the 1998 French Open champion has only two final appearances to his name - but no titles.

In Acapulco last month he lost the final to Argentina's Juan Ignacio Chela in straight sets while in Sydney in January he was beaten 6-3 5-7 6-1 by American James Blake.

The following week Blake knocked him out of the Australian Open in the first round in straight sets.

So far this year his win-lose record stands at 12-6 - almost a reflection of his 2-1 career ratio after clocking up 513 wins and 270 defeats.

His game is best suited to clay and hard courts so he will feel at home on the courts at Indian Wells and, so far he as yet to drop a set - following a first-round win over Chile's Paul Capdeville 6-4 6-4, his second-round victory over Czech Republic 25th seed Radek Stepanek 6-3 6-4 and that third-round win over Canas 6-4 6-4.

Off court he is a man of many talents, he likes playing the guitar, singing, acting and going scuba diving and has even launched his own range of cologne. He is a big fan of Real Mallorca football club and his sporting pals are golfer Sergio Garcia and basketball player Pau Gasol of Memphis Grizzlies.

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