Davidoff Swiss Indoors Basel 2011: Preview Day 2 – Part One
Adding the finishing touches to a memorable ATP season, 2011 Davidoff Swiss Indoors enters its second day at the St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland on Tuesday, November 1st. An ATP 500 event, the tournament showcases
some of the best professionals of the tennis world.
Opening play on the Centre Court is the top ranked American, Mardy Fish. Ranked ninth in the world and a former world number seven, Fish looks to add another title to his name to cement his chances of a debut appearance at the
Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London later in the month. Playing in his first round match at Basel, Fish takes on compatriot and former world number four, James Blake.
Except for a first match loss at Shanghai recently, Fish has put in splendid appearances in his last ten matches. Following a semi-final loss to Andy Murray at the Cincinnati Masters, Fish made it all the way to the fourth round
at Flushing Meadows before crashing out to higher ranked Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The inform Fish backed this with a final four showing at Tokyo losing to Rafael Nadal. Cruising past most of his opponents, the Americans only falls short when facing someone
in the top ten.
Add the 3-2 head-to-head lead in the mix and Fish becomes the favourite to win in the opening round clash. Having last met in the semi-final of the San Jose event, Fish moved into a two match winning streak. In their sixth meeting
here, Fish would certainly be looking forward to extend this streak with the added hopes of cementing his chances of a final appearance.
As Fish plays Blake on the Centre Court, the team of Robin Haase (Dutch) and Florian Mayer (German) kick off their doubles campaign as they take on the tandem of Frank Moser and Denis Istomin. The Dutch German duo was initially
scheduled to play the team of Jurgen Melzer and Tommy Haas. However, Melzer pulled out from the event due to lower back.
Following the doubles on the court will be the top ranked Russian Mikhail Youzhny as he takes on local qualifier, Michael Lammer in their first ever career meeting. Although the local enjoys the crowd support, the higher ranked
Russian is expected to sail past into the next round.
While Lammer plays Youzhny, his compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka will be taking to the courts to play his first round match against Ivan Dodig. With almost similar runs and no previous competitions between them, the professionals
stand on almost equal footing. However, Wawrinka is the favourite to win given the local crowd support and a tad higher ranking.
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