{"id":924,"date":"2008-07-26T21:39:42","date_gmt":"2008-07-27T05:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=924"},"modified":"2008-07-26T21:39:42","modified_gmt":"2008-07-27T05:39:42","slug":"atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-cincinnati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-cincinnati\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks for Cincinnati"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time for the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season<\/a> so check out our Fantasy Tennis Guide<\/a>. You\u2019ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sign up<\/a> and join our subleague<\/a>! It\u2019s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This week’s submission deadline is Monday, July 28th, 10am (EST) in the U.S.\/4pm (CET) in Europe.<\/p>\n

This week we have our second consecutive Masters Series event, this time in Cincinnati, and the same players are here because it\u2019s a required event. We need eight players for our fantasy team so let\u2019s pick the quarterfinalists.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati draw<\/a> (hard court, first prize: $420,000)<\/p>\n

Notice, again, that the prize money is about $130,000 less than the remaining Masters events in Europe.<\/p>\n

I thought I had Roger Federer\u2019s section covered last week in Toronto because Fernando Gonzalez had a career 7-1 record over Jose Acasuso, but Acasuso went out and won that match. Acasuso and Mario Ancic are in Federer\u2019s section this week, but Ancic has never been past the third round in Canada or Cincinnati, and Acasuso is 0-3 against Federer – including a straight set loss in Miami this year. I didn\u2019t use Federer last week and that was a good decision because he lost his first match, but should I still save him or will he bounce back and take the title in Cincinnati? Andy Murray beat Federer two years ago here and he beat him in Dubai this year, so Federer might not make it to the final. I\u2019m going to save him and see if he can make more money at the U.S. Open and Madrid. So who should I pick in this section?<\/p>\n

Ivo Karlovic hasn\u2019t gone past the third round of a hard court event all year. Acasuso reached the third round in Toronto last week and he reached the quarterfinals here three years ago so Acasuso it is.<\/p>\n

Philipp Kohlschreiber beat Andy Roddick at the Australian Open this year but he\u2019s 1-4 on hard court since then. Robin Soderling beat Roddick in Memphis for Roddick\u2019s only loss indoors this year. In Soderling\u2019s last three hard court events, he\u2019s gone out to Richard Gasquet, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic, and that ain\u2019t bad. I have a sneaky feeling that Roddick might redeem himself this week, but I want to save him for the US Open and Paris \u2013 where he reached the semifinals last year \u2013 so I\u2019m going with Soderling.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to pick Nikolay Davydenko in his section but he\u2019s reached the semifinals at the US Open for the past two years and won Moscow two out of the last three years, so I\u2019m saving him. Janko Tipsarevic has never done much in the summer hard court season. Igor Andreev has good results on hard court this year while Radek Stepanek hasn\u2019t beaten anyone on that surface. If you\u2019ve got any more picks left for Andreev, take him.<\/p>\n

Murray got his knee taped up in his semifinal loss to Rafael Nadal today. Check the injury reports tomorrow before you pick him. Richard Gasquet is in this section along with Dmitry Tursunov and Tursunov has beaten Gasquet two of the three times they\u2019ve met on hard court this year. However, neither player has been past the second round here. Sam Querrey is here too and he reached the quarterfinals last year and he beat Tursunov at the Australian Open. Since then, though, he hasn\u2019t been past the second round in a big hard court event. I\u2019ve only got one more Gasquet pick left and I\u2019m not sure Murray\u2019s going to be here so I\u2019m going with Tursunov.<\/p>\n

James Blake was disappointed about going out in the quarterfinals in Toronto, but he did win $51,000 and he\u2019d have to take the title at Washington or New Haven to make more than that. The problem is that he\u2019ll face either Nicolas Kiefer or Gilles Simon in his first match. Kiefer beat him in Toronto and reached the final, Simon beat Federer and reached the semifinals, and Ernests Gulbis and Stanislaw Wawrinka are here too. Oy! That\u2019s a tough section.<\/p>\n

Wawrinka has done well on hard court but he hasn\u2019t beaten anyone strong and he\u2019s never been past the second round here. Gulbis might break out this week but I\u2019m not counting on it. You know what, I\u2019m going with Blake again because I don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to win the Simon-Kiefer first round match and I don\u2019t expect either player to do well in two straight Masters events. In fact, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if one of them dropped out. And Blake reached the final here last year.<\/p>\n

I used my fourth Novak Djokovic pick last week so I\u2019m saving my last pick for the US Open. That\u2019s too bad really because he\u2019s got an easy section. Feliciano Lopez has gone out in the first round here the past three years and he\u2019s only made it past the third round of a hard court tournament once this year. Fernando Gonzalez is 3-0 over Berdych and 1-0 over Andreas Seppi, so I\u2019m going with Gonzalez.<\/p>\n

Last week I chose Richard Gasquet over David Ferrer despite the fact that Ferrer had beaten him in their last two matches because Ferrer doesn\u2019t have a good record in Canada. But Ferrer reached the quarterfinals in Cincinnati the past two years and he can certainly beat Fernando Verdasco on hard court, but can he beat Marin Cilic? Cilic beat Andy Roddick to get to the quarterfinals last week but I think Ferrer can outsteady him. Still, I\u2019m saving Ferrer for the US Open and Paris where he can make more money because he\u2019s in Nadal\u2019s quarter so he\u2019s unlikely to get to the semifinals unless Nadal develops a good case of the blisters. Cilic it is.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve used Nadal four times already so I\u2019m saving him for the US Open. That means I have to choose between Tommy Haas and Mikhail Youzhny and that\u2019s tough because they play in the first round. Haas reached the quarterfinals at Indianapolis and both players went out in the second round in Toronto. I think Haas can beat Youzhny if he\u2019s healthy so I\u2019m picking Haas.<\/p>\n

My picks<\/b><\/p>\n

Here are my picks: Acasuso, Soderling, Andreev, Tursunov, Blake, Gonzalez, Cilic, Haas.<\/p>\n

Happy fantasies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s time for the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season so check out our Fantasy Tennis Guide. You\u2019ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game. Sign up and join our subleague! It\u2019s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline. This week’s submission deadline is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}