Valencia Open 2011: Preview Day 3 – Part Two
Singles action at the 2011 Valencia Open 500 in Valencia, Spain continues on Wednesday, 1st November as former world number four, Juan Martin del Potro kicks off his title bid here. The top ranked Argentine is looking
to win the title here to cement his chances of securing a berth in the season ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London.
A finalist at Vienna last week, DelPo opens his title bid here as he takes on Russian Dmitry Tursunov in the opening round. This will be the pair’s first meeting ever in their careers. The Argentine is expected to move past the
Russian in straight sets.
Recording only two losses in his past ten matches, the Argentine made it all the finals of the 2011 Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Austria last week falling to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the title match. Earlier he recorded to back to back
wins in the semi-final of the Davis Cup against Serbia. Tursunov, on the other hand, has mostly suffered early round exits save two final eight showings at Moscow and Kuala Lumpur.
Being a former top ten player, the Argentine will most likely have no difficulty in doing away with the Russian.
As DelPo wraps up the first round, win or lose, the only other second round match of the event scheduled in the day follows as Frenchman Gael Monfils plays local Pablo Andujar.
The pair clash in the second round for the second time in their careers having met once before at Stuttgart in 2010. Monfils had then survived a mid match lapse to secure a three set win over the Spaniard.
Although Andujar enjoys the local crowd support, Monfils recent form suggests a different outcome. A semi-finalist at Bangkok, Monfils comes into Valencia fresh from a title win at Stockholm. He had earlier defeated Albert Montanes
in the first round here. Andujar sports a completely opposite statistic. Standing on a four match losing streak with four first round exits, Andujar finally managed a win as he defeated Juan Ignacio Chela in the first round here.
However, Monfils backed by the psychological c*m statistical advantage, the higher ranking and the better recent form, is expected to blast past the Spaniard into the final four.
Wrapping up the singles action for the day will be another local, Feliciano Lopez. The world number 21 begins his campaign here against American Alex Bogomolov Jr. The pair has met only once before earlier in the year when the
Spaniard required three sets to go up in the head-to-head. However, backed by the local support Lopez will be able to repeat the feat easily and secure a straight sets victory this time around.
As the doubles action continues on the Pista, the teaming of Kevin Anderson and John Isner plays the second round match as they take on the local pairing of Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez. The locals are the favourites to win.
Another doubles match to follows is the top seeded Bryan brothers playing Lukas Dlouhy and Alexander Dolgopolov. The top seeds are expected to sail on ahead with minimum resistance.
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