{"id":962,"date":"2008-10-12T16:27:57","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T00:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=962"},"modified":"2008-10-12T16:27:57","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T00:27:57","slug":"atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks for Madrid"},"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,
\nStrategies, 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 morning, October 13, 4am (EST) in the U.S.\/10am (CET) in Europe.<\/p>\n

This week we have the next to last Masters Series event of the year in Madrid, so make the most of it because Masters Series events pay a lot of money and the European Masters events pay more than the US events. We need eight players for our fantasy team so let\u2019s pick the quarterfinalists, two players from each quarter.<\/p>\n

Madrid draw<\/a> (indoor hard court, first prize: $553,846)<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal has a pretty easy path to the quarterfinals. In the past three years he\u2019s reached the quarterfinals twice and won this event. However, I\u2019d be surprised if anyone hasn\u2019t used Nadal five times already and I\u2019ve used up my Richard Gasquets. Nicolas Kiefer did reach the semifinals here last year but Nadal beat him indoors in Davis Cup this year. Since Kiefer is Nadal\u2019s first opponent, I\u2019m going to have pick three players in one of the other sections.<\/p>\n

The next section is virtually impossible to pick. First of all, four of the players reached the quarterfinals or better this week in Vienna or Stockholm. Second of all, that number does’t include the seeds in this section, Stanislas Wawrinka and David Ferrer. Ferrer didn\u2019t play and Wawrinka lost in the first round in Vienna to Philipp Petzschner who beat Feliciano Lopez to get to the final. Carlos Moya just reached the quarterfinals in both Metz and Vienna after winning a total of three matches indoors in the past four years. What am I suppose to make of that? Philipp Kohlschreiber got to the semifinals in Vienna and he reached the semifinals in Moscow and St. Petersburg last year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m picking Lopez because Kohlschreiber has never played in either Madrid or Paris, Wawrinka has never gone past the second round on indoor hard court outside of Vienna, and Lopez beat Ferrer in both their matches on indoor hard court including Madrid last year.<\/p>\n

Dmitry Tursunov just won the title in Metz and he won the Bangkok title last year, but I don\u2019t think he can beat Novak Djokovic in the second round. Most of us have used up our Djokovics so that leaves us to pick between Robin Soderling and Ivo Karlovic. Soderling is 14-4 on indoor hard court this year and he just reached the final in Stockholm. Soderling it is.<\/p>\n

I still have one Nikolay Davydenko left but he\u2019s never gone past the third round in Madrid. Then again, James Blake has never won a match here in four attempts. However, Blake beat Gilles Simon twice this year, he\u2019s 5-0 over Igor Andreev, 2-0 over Michael Llodra, 6-0 over Nikolay Davydenko including two matches indoors, and he beat Safin in their only meeting indoors. Safin is in the Moscow final tomorrow so he\u2019s a viable pick, but I\u2019m going to say that Blake finally has to win a match here and I’m picking him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve used up all five of my Andy Roddicks but that\u2019s okay because he\u2019s never been past the third round here. Gael Monfils just reached the semifinals in Bangkok and he\u2019s in the final in Vienna, and Fernando Gonzalez has reached two quarterfinals and a final here in the past three years. Andreas Seppi and Tommy Robredo haven\u2019t done much on indoor hard court this year so I\u2019m choosing between Monfils and Gonzalez who have never played each other. I\u2019m going with Gonzalez because Monfils has never been past the first round here.<\/p>\n

Andy Murray has the easiest path of all to the quarterfinals. The only thing that could hurt him is inactivity. He hasn\u2019t played an ATP event since the US Open but then, neither has Marin Cilic. Cilic reached the semifinals in St. Petersburg last year but that\u2019s the only time he\u2019s won a match on indoor hard court. Fernando Verdasco just reached the quarterfinals in Vienna but Murray is 3-0 over him including a win last year at St. Petersburg. Murray it is.<\/p>\n

David Nalbandian is at it again. He took both the Madrid and Paris titles last year after a down year and this week he\u2019s in the Stockholm final. Tomas Berdych and Juan Martin Del Potro are in this section too as are Rainer Schuettler and Jarkko Nieminen. Schuettler just reached the quarterfinals in Stockholm but he\u2019s 0-3 in Madrid, and Nalbandian just beat Nieminen in Stockholm. I\u2019ve already used Berdych five times so that leaves me with this question: can Del Potro beat Nalbandian? Nalbandian beat him in their only meeting here in Madrid last year, but that was before Del Potro won four tournaments in a row. Still, Nalbandian has a title, a final, and two semifinals here in the past four years so I\u2019m taking him.<\/p>\n

After faking everyone out last week by announcing on his website that he was skipping Stockholm and he wasn\u2019t sure when he\u2019d return to the tour, Roger Federer is playing in Madrid. I saved him for one fall tournament and since he has a title, a final, a semifinal and quarterfinal in his four appearances here, I\u2019m using him.<\/p>\n

Since I didn\u2019t pick anyone in Nadal\u2019s section, I need one more player. I\u2019ve got two more Del Potros so I\u2019m going to use him because he\u2019s should get to the third round.<\/p>\n

Picks<\/b><\/p>\n

Here are my picks for the week: Lopez, Soderling, Blake, Gonzalez, Murray, Nalbandian, Del Potro, Federer.<\/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-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","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=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}