Malaysian Open and PTT Thailand Open tennis tournament - Monday Preview
The Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur, second year championship on the ATP World Tour, features a strong field with four of the top ten tennis contenders in the 2010 Association of tennis professionals ranking.
Heading the way is the top-seeded and fifth-ranked tennis player from Sweden, Robin Soderling, the last year’s winner Nikolay Davydenko from Russia, Tomas Berdych from Czech Republic and the Russian tennis ace, Mikhail Youzhny. All four contenders are hoping to earn one of six positions remaining for the year ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which are going to be held in London.
The other top players taking part in the competition include the world number five, David Ferrer from Spain, the sixth-ranked Marcos Baghdatis from Cyrpus, the seventh-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine and Andrey Golubev, who is ranked number eight in the world by the Association of tennis professionals.
Seven of the top eight seeded players except Tomas, have captured at least a single ATP World Tour crown this year.
A total of eight singles clashes are scheduled for Monday. In the opening match on the Centre Court, Michal Przysiezny from Poland will take on Santiago Giraldo of Colombia on the very first occasion. In the next match, another Colombian Alejandro Falla will meet the huge serving tennis player from South Africa, Kevin Anderson. In the third singles clash of the day, Stakhovsky, a two-time champion on the ATP World Tour this season will play a 32-year-old American tennis player, Michael Russell who is the oldest contenders in the singles draw.
In Monday’s evening session, Yen-Hsun Lu from China will face Golubev on the very first occasion. Both the contenders are playing at their best this year. Yen made his way into the quarter final of the grass court Grand Slam tournament this season, whereas Golubev secured his first ATP World Tour trophy in Hamburg during the month of July. In the last battle, a wild card entrant from Malaysia, Yew-Ming Si will meet Yuki Bhambri, another wild card who hails from India.
In doubles matches, the top seeds and winners are the Polish duo of Marcin Matkowski and Mariusz Fyrstenberg.
In some other action, the eight edition of the PTT Thailand Open tennis tournament features a strong field, headed by the world number one tennis ace, Rafael Nadal, who is participating in the competition on the very first occasion in his career. Other seeds include, Fernando Verdasco who is seeded second, the third seeded Jurgen Melzer from Austria, fourth seeded Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, fifth seeded Juan Martin Del Potro, sixth seeded Thiemo de Bakker, seventh seeded Viktor Troicki and the eight seeded Michael Berrer from Germany.
This is the first time after a period of five years that a top-ranked tennis player is contesting in Bangkok. Previously, Roger Federer captured the trophy back in 2005.
On today’s schedule, there are four qualifying clashes and four main draw singles to be played in Bangkok. In the opening match on Centre Court, a French tennis player Florent Serra will meet Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia. In the next clash, the top seeded Dutch tennis player Thiemo de Bakker, who is also making a debut at the Thailand Open, will play against a wild card entrant from Spain, Marc Lopez. They will face each other for the very first time in their professional life. The 22-year-old de Bakker has broken into the Top fifty this year, while making his way into a total of two ATP World Tour semi-finals.
In the evening schedule, 2009 finalist, Troicki will face the third seeded Swiss, Marco Chiudinelli on the very first occasion. Troicki is also a two-time semi finalist this season and is also a part of the Davis Cup side of his country.
Next up is the top-seeded doubles pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. They are playing together in a championship for the first time since the 2008 Beijing Olympics where they made it only to the quarters.
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