Paris Masters

Forgive me for posting half-way through a tournament and giving my analysis at such a late date. Yes, ok my analysis may be slightly tainted by what has happened earlier in the tournament but it is still a hard market to predict what is going to happen in tennis.

For any of you cynics out there that rhyme off the names of the top four in the world as being dominant in this tournament, my message for you would be to think again. Rafael Nadal is not as strong on this surface as some may expect, this isn't a rant about the world's number one, but I have some concerns about his hard-court game. He has never reached the final of a Grand Slam hard-court tournament and his ranking points are mostly attained through the clay court season (obviously winning Wimbledon helped as well!)

Nadal was beaten in the Madrid Masters semi-final by relatively unknown (top level anyway) Gilles Simon. Although, Simon had a great tournament he should not be able to beat a player of Nadal's quality.

Novak Djokovic is a player whose form has dropped since winning the Australian Open title. A shock straight sets defeat to the resurgent Marat Safin at Wimbledon arose certain questions about his form. Further defeats to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (twice) and Ivo Karlovic in recent weeks prove that the world number three is struggling with his form. Today, he was beaten again by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and I for one can say I took Tsonga's odds at 7/4.

Federer and Murray seem to be the two favourites for me. Murray obviously is in red-hot form and Federer is....well Roger Federer!

Currently the third round results/matches look like this:

Nadal vs Monfils
Blake beat Kohlschreiber 6-4 6-4
Nalbandian beat Del Potro 6-4 6-0
Murray beat Verdasco 6-3 7-6
Roddick beat Simon 6-3 7-5
Tsonga beat Djokovic 6-4 1-6 6-3
Berdych vs Davydenko
Federer beat Cilic 6-3 6-4

So, with two games left to finish, I fancy Nadal and Berdych to progress. That would mean:

Nadal vs Berdych
Murray vs Nalbandian
Roddick vs Tsonga
Blake vs Federer.

After, my reasonably unsuccessful predictions at Madrid Masters, I am going to attempt to redeem myself!

Nadal will definitely have his work cut out if he is to play Berdych. Berdych is a young and very talented up-and-coming player and capable of playing with anyone on his day. Nadal, I would expect to prevail because I feel he will respond to the added pressure on his shoulders.

Murray - Nalbandian is definitely the best match-up in the quarter finals. The players haven't played since that game at Wimbledon where Murray burst onto the scene and I feel Nalbandian is in good nic. He demolished Del Potro for the second time within the week and looks back to his best. I am going to predict a win for Nalbandian. Why? Even after my last post of building up Murray? I just feel Murray can't continually keep coming up with the goods. Yes, it's brilliant to see he has come such a long way and a defeat won't affect him too much in my opinion.

Tsonga - Roddick will be a match of few breaks I suspect. With both players having big serves and essentially a power game, Tsonga's win over Djokovic should give him confidence and I'm sure the home crowd will be there to cheer him onto another sweet victory.

Federer vs Blake should be a one-sided affair. I haven't seen much of Blake in recent months that suggests he merits his world number 11 ranking. I truly can't see him presenting any problems for Federer.

Semi - final prediction
Nadal vs Nalbandian
Tsonga vs Federer