{"id":319,"date":"2009-06-03T01:05:26","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T06:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=319"},"modified":"2009-06-03T06:19:26","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T11:19:26","slug":"quarterfinals-the-second-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"Quarterfinals – The Second Half"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing from yesterday’s post<\/a>, here is the rest of the Quarterfinal preview at the 2009 French Open.<\/p>\n

The Djokovic (4) Quadrant:<\/strong>
\nQUARTERFINAL WEDNESDAY – #5 Del Potro vs. #16 Robredo<\/p>\n

The top half of this quadrant showed continued dominance by the one guy that I think is WAY too far under the radar right now–5th seed, Juan Martin Del Potro.\u00a0 After two easy matches in the first two rounds, Del Potro then discarded 25th-seeded Igor Andreev in straight sets to enter the Round of 16.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 9th-seed, after struggling through two rounds, also blasted his third round opponent, Christophe Rochus, in straight sets:\u00a0 6-2 6-2 6-2.<\/p>\n

That set up a nice Round of 16 match between Del Potro and Tsonga, where a lot of people believed Tsonga might roll, I thought the other way around.\u00a0 It turns out neither were correct, as the match did go 4 sets, but it was still a pretty convincing win for the Argentine, whom I believe to be the favorite to win this whole thing right now.<\/p>\n

The bottom half of this quadrant looked like it was going to produce a nice Round of 16 match between the World’s #4 Novak Djokovic and the accomplished clay tactician, Tommy Robredo.\u00a0 Robredo held up his end of the bargain, though he struggled through splitting the first two sets, he recovered to smoke the young Maximo Gonzalez, 6-1 and 6-0 in the 3rd and 4th sets to advance to the Round of 16.\u00a0 However, Djokovic laid an egg against German Philipp Kohlschreiber in the Third Round.\u00a0 Not that Kohlschreiber doesn’t have the game to beat Djokovic, but he clearly doesn’t have the game to beat him in straight sets in a Grand Slam event.\u00a0 Djokovic looked distracted and distant.\u00a0 Kohlschreiber took advantage.<\/p>\n

Kohlschreiber continued his excellent effort in this Grand Slam by really pushing Robredo in the Round of 16, but he just didn’t have enough at the end on a surface that greatly favored his opponent.\u00a0 Robredo eventually won in 4, moving on to the Quarterfinals for the fourth time here are Roland Garros (every odd year since 2003).<\/p>\n

BSB’s PICK – Del Potro in 4.\u00a0 BSB’s current favorite to win the whole tournament, Juan Martin Del Potro should be able to handle Robredo.\u00a0 It is more likely to go 3 than 5, but we believe that Robredo can take a set from the red-hot Argentine.<\/p>\n

The Federer (2) Quadrant:<\/strong>
\nQUARTERFINAL WEDNESDAY – #2 Federer vs. #11 Monfils<\/p>\n

The top half of this bracket was a good story for two countries that have been starved for male tennis stars recently.\u00a0 The lone American to get out of the first round was 6th-seeded Andy Roddick, who swept through the first two rounds in 6 sets and got another straight set win in the Third Round against Marc Gicquel.\u00a0 France is going to other direction with its male tennis stars.\u00a0 They are up-and-coming, and 11th-seeded Gael Monfils might be the most exciting of a bunch that had three top-11 seeds in this draw.\u00a0 Monfils had no trouble in his first two rounds.\u00a0\u00a0He did drop a set in the Third Round match against 24th-seeded Jurgen Melzer, but looked pretty good in an unthreatening 4-set victory.<\/p>\n

That all set up an American-French clash in the Round of 16.\u00a0 The most anticipated (at least by me) of the 8 matches in this round actually turned out to be a blowout.\u00a0 Monfils made short work of Roddick, in a straight set 1 hour, 51 minute domination.\u00a0 Monfils was just too mobile and flat-out too good for Roddick on this day and cruises into the Quarterfinals after a Semifinals performance last year.<\/p>\n

The bottom half of this quadrant opened with the only Third Round match between two unseeded players, as Tommy Haas knocked off 22-year old French prodigy Jeremy Chardy in four tough sets.\u00a0 Then there was the bottom part of this quadrant–where all the eyes have turned since the Nadal loss.\u00a0 2nd-seeded Roger Federer (only missing this tournament for the career grand slam and an argument for the greatest of all-time) had struggled a bit, but gotten through the first two rounds.\u00a0 His Third Round match was against veteran Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu, playing in his 8th French Open.\u00a0 Federer, as has been more common recently, came out slow and dropped the first set before stepping it up and beating Mathieu in 4 to set up a date with Tommy Haas in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n

Haas has been around the block, so to speak, so he was not intimidated by Federer, winning the opening set in a tiebreak and then the second set, 7-5.\u00a0 Federer, who watched the defeat of the one man who has stood in his way at this tournament yesterday, was now staring at a 2-set deficit, himself.\u00a0 He hit a big forehand down 3-4 and 30-40 to spark a rally to win a hard-fought third set, 6-4, before hitting the switch and steamrolling Haas, 6-0 (in 21 minutes) and 6-2 in the final two sets.\u00a0 A truly impressive performance by The Federer, but how much did it take out of him?\u00a0 Though it was a 5-set match on clay, it didn’t even reach the three-hour mark because of the two big servers and the quick holds, so he should be, at least a little rested when he takes on hometown hero, Gael Monfils in the Quarters.<\/p>\n

BSB’s PICK – Federer in 5.\u00a0 If Nadal were still in this tournament, this might be different, but there has to be even more <\/em>incentive for Roger now that he sees a clear path to a record-tying 14th Grand Slam and the completion of the career Slam, which only 5 players have ever done.\u00a0 He probably let up a little with Haas in those first two sets after watching Rafa go down, but he realized what was at stake and turned it on when he needed it.\u00a0 Oh, by the way, this is a pretty awesome rematch of an epic Semifinal from last year’s French Open, in which Federer was lucky to survive in 4 sets.\u00a0 John McEnroe actually believes that Monfils is the favorite in this match, but I am going to pick Federer.\u00a0 Experience and, dare I say it, destiny may be in play here for The Federer.\u00a0 Either way, it’s going to be great!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing from yesterday’s post, here is the rest of the Quarterfinal preview at the 2009 French Open. The Djokovic (4) Quadrant: QUARTERFINAL WEDNESDAY – #5 Del Potro vs. #16 Robredo The top half of this quadrant showed continued dominance by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[604,435,621,441,620,444,438,625,624,622,437,627,623,301,626,445],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis","tag-2009-french-open","tag-andy-roddick","tag-christophe-rochus","tag-gael-monfils","tag-igor-andreev","tag-jo-wilfried-tsonga","tag-juan-martin-del-potro","tag-jurgen-melzer","tag-marc-gicquel","tag-maximo-gonzalez","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-paul-henri-mathieu","tag-philipp-kohlschreiber","tag-roger-federer","tag-tommy-haas","tag-tommy-robredo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}