Valencia Open 2011: Preview Day 1 – Part One
With only two weeks left in the season ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London Spaniard David Ferrer returns home this week as the top seed at the 2011 Valencia to clinch another title before the big event.
The defending champion here Ferrer looks forward to a successful week before going against the big three, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
However, scheduled later in the event, Ferrer has to wait before he starts his title defence here. Kicking off play at Valencia is the former world number three and currently 56th ranked Russian, Nikolay Davydenko. The
Russian takes on a top fifteen player as he plays Frenchman Gilles Simon.
Despite exiting Shanghai and St. Petersburg in the early rounds, Simon is a formidable opponent who has what it takes to do away with the Russian. His last best performance came at the Bangkok event when he made it to the quarterfinal
losing to eventual champion, Andy Murray. Davydenko, on the other hand, has made it to the quarterfinal of the Kuala Lumpur event followed by a semi-final showing at Moscow.
However, coming into the match both players stand at a two match losing streak. What remains to be seen is who snaps his off first. Pundits believe Simon has the advantage over the Russian as he sports a 5-1 lead in the head-to-head
against the Russian. Losing only once to Davydenko four years ago at Hamburg, Simon has since then mustered a five match winning streak doing away with the Russian as latest as early his year at Marseille. With the odds tipped in his favour, Simon is expected
to blast past the ageing Russian in straight sets.
Following Simon and Davydenko on the courts will be local Daniel Gimeno-Traver as he takes on the higher ranked Italian Fabio Fognini. While Fognini has been playing most of his matches on tour recently, Gimeno-Traver comes off
from the Challenger circuit with a unsuccessful final run in Madrid in early October. The Spaniard failed to qualify for Vienna while the Italian crashed out in the first round.
With almost similar runs lately, Fognini’s only edge over the Italian comes in the head-to-head score which he currently leads 4-1. The two last met in the first round of Bucharest in 2009 where the Italian bounced back from a
set down to enjoy a three set victory. However, given the disparity in their rankings and the statistical edge, Fognini is expected to sail past the local. Though Gimeno-Traver’s local crowd support may make this task more difficult.
Gimeno-Traver is followed onto the courts by his compatriot, Guillermo Garcia Lopez as he takes on Frenchman qualifier Nicolas Mahut. With similar forms recently both players present an evenly poised competition. The Spaniard’s
local crowd support is nullified by the Frenchman’s victory over the Spaniard in their only previous meeting. However, Lopez is predicted to easily sail past Mahut into the next round.
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