{"id":955,"date":"2008-09-21T10:33:34","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T18:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=955"},"modified":"2008-09-21T10:33:34","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T18:33:34","slug":"atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-bangkok-and-beijing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-bangkok-and-beijing\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks for Bangkok and Beijing"},"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

Pay attention! This week’s submission deadline is Sunday evening, September 21, 9pm (EST) in the U.S\/Monday morning, September 22, 3am (CET) in Europe.<\/p>\n

We have two tournaments in Asia this week in Bangkok and Beijing. The prize money is similar in both tournaments and we need eight players for our fantasy team so let\u2019s pick the quarterfinalists in each event.<\/p>\n

Bangkok draw<\/a> (hard court, first prize: $94,000)<\/p>\n

Beijing draw<\/a> (indoor hard court, first prize: $85,000)<\/p>\n

Sorry to be late with the Bangkok picks but time difference and weekend partying got in the way. Bangkok didn\u2019t get its draw out until yesterday evening west coast time in the US, and by that time the party at my house had started and didn\u2019t end until 3am. So here I am the morning after, surrounded by empty beer bottles and potato chip crumbs but, more or less, ready to go.<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic is the number one seed in Bangkok but most people have used him five times already this season and can\u2019t use him again. If you can still use him, save him for one of the two remaining Masters Series events left on the schedule. Robin Soderling is a good second choice. He\u2019s 10-3 on indoor hard court this year which ain\u2019t bad at all.<\/p>\n

Novak\u2019s brother Marko is in the second quarter. Since he\u2019s currently ranked 1728, I\u2019m guessing his wild card came along with Novak\u2019s appearance fee. Nicolas Mahut just won a challenger on indoor hard court and he reached the quarterfinals here last year, so he could beat Jarkko Nieminen. But Tomas Berdych is 3-0 over Nieminen lifetime and Berdych beat him in Canada this summer. Berdych also reached the semifinals here last year so he\u2019s my pick.<\/p>\n

In the third quarter, Marat Safin, Mischa Zverev, and Gael Monfils are eligible for our fantasy team and it\u2019s tough to pick between them. Safin used to be a very good indoor hard court player but he\u2019s not doing well this year. Monfils hasn\u2019t won a match indoors since 2005 but he\u2019s only played in four indoor events over that period. Zverev plays well indoors and he did reach the quarterfinals at Rotterdam as a qualifier this year, but most of his results indoors have been in challengers. I\u2019m picking Zverev because he reached the quarterfinals here two years ago as a qualifier and he has a better record indoors this year.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Becker reached the final here last year but he just lost in the first round in an indoor challenger. Fabrice Santoro\u2019s best results indoors lately have been in challengers. Jurgen Melzer is having a good year – he\u2019s reached three quarterfinals and a final, but he hasn\u2019t gone past the second round indoors in the past year while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had a quarterfinal and semifinal indoors last fall so I\u2019m going with Tsonga.<\/p>\n

It seems like only yesterday we were staying up all hours of the night to watch swimming and tennis and all sorts of other sports at the Beijing Olympics and here we are, back in Beijing again. This is a rare opportunity to compare performances on the same court only a few weeks apart.<\/p>\n

The first person who pops up is Fernando Gonzalez and he\u2019s in the third quarter of this draw. He won this event last year and he reached the final at the Olympics. Gonzalez beat Sam Querrey, the main competition in his quarter, in their only meeting but that doesn\u2019t mean much because Querrey had just joined the tour. Both players reached the fourth round at the US Open but I\u2019m picking Gonzalez because Querrey lost in the first round at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

David Ferrer is the top seed and he has Tommy Robredo in his quarter. Robredo lost in the final here last year. This is actually a tough match to pick because Robredo has a losing record on hard court this year but he reached the fourth round at the US Open. Ferrer got to the third round at the US Open and both players lost in the first round at the Olympics. Ferrer beat Robredo in their only hard court meeting last year but I can only use Ferrer one more time so I\u2019m saving him for Tokyo \u2013 which he won last year \u2013 or Paris. Robredo it is.<\/p>\n

Yen-Hsun Lu is in the second quarter and he beat Andy Murray at the Olympics and made it to the third round. Murray was probably tired and we can\u2019t pick Lu anyway because he wasn\u2019t in the top 100 when the fantasy season started. Richard Gasquet has been all over the place this year. He barely has a winning record on clay and isn\u2019t much better on hard court. He didn\u2019t go to the Olympics and he lost in the first round at the US Open though his opponent, Tommy Haas, is a very tough player. Rainer Schuettler is here too but he\u2019s never gone past the second round in five tried in Beijing and he\u2019s only 3-7 on hard court this year.<\/p>\n

This is tough luck for me because I\u2019ve used up all my Gasquets so I\u2019m going to have to pick Schuettler. Should you pick Gasquet if you have him? He could get to the final but he\u2019s not likely to win this event because Gonzalez and Andy Roddick are in the bottom half and Robredo, who is in his half, beat him the last two times they met on hard court. Gasquet reached the final in Tokyo last year \u2013 which pays more than this event \u2013 and he reached the semifinals in the Masters event in Paris so I\u2019d consider keeping him for an event where he can make more money.<\/p>\n

Fernando Verdasco, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Andy Roddick are in the bottom quarter. There\u2019s lots of star power here for what is a low paying event in the fall schedule. I have one more Roddick left but should I use him? He hasn\u2019t lost to Fernando Verdasco since 2005, he\u2019s 4-0 over Juan Carlos Ferrero, and he just beat Gonzalez in straight sets at the US Open so he should get to the final. Curiously, he\u2019s only 2-3 against Ferrer on hard court but he\u2019s 8-0 over Robredo. He said he was going to play four events this fall but he seldom plays more than two so I\u2019m getting my money while I can.<\/p>\n

Picks<\/strong><\/p>\n

My picks are: Soderling, Berdych, Zverev, Tsonga, Robredo, Schuettler, Gonzalez, Roddick.<\/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. Pay attention! This week’s submission […]<\/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-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","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=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}