Much has been made of the fact that David Nalbandian has a career winning record against Roger Federer but it’s rather misleading. Federer came within two points of beating Nalbandian in the title match of last year’s championship in Shanghai despite the fact that he had missed seven weeks with an injured ankle. Previous to that match, Nalbandian had not beaten Federer since 2003.

It’s curious to note that nine of the ten matches between these two took place at a Masters Series or slam event. In the only smaller event, Nalbandian beat Federer in his home town of Basel in 2002. That wasn’t very nice.

Tomorrow they meet again in the semifinals of the Tennis Masters Series Rome. I’m less concerned about Nalbandian’s career record against Federer than Federer’s difficulties with Nicolas Almagro today. After Federer won the first set 6-3, Almagro took the second set tiebreaker 7-2. Almagro had trouble serving at 5-6 in the third set to lose it 5-7 else they were heading for another tiebreak.

Almagro has played exactly one match on hard court this year, a first round loss to Igor Andreev in the Australian Open, otherwise he’s a monster on clay where he’s 22-5. It might have been the perfect preparation for Federer. While everyone else in the round had a romp, Federer fought past a tough opponent and is more than ready for Nalbandian and, hopefully, Nadal.

Federer vs. Nadal is not a rivalry unless Federer can beat Nadal now and then. A victory on clay would be a good start.

I was 4 for 4 in picking quarterfinal matches and I’m 30 for 52 overall in this tournament. That means that I’ve been correct 57% of the time. Books on gambling tell you that you are doing o.k. if you make 53% or more of your bets. If you’re winning more than 57 or 58% of your bets, then you’re not taking enough chances, you’re choosing easy bets and are probably not making as much money as you could.

The purpose here is to play fantasy tennis, not gamble, but I wonder if playing fantasy tennis has a similar effect as gambling. When you gamble, what happens durin the game is not as important as the final score and whether you won the bet. I wonder if fantasy game players find themselves paying more attention to the outcome of a match and less to the tennis itself.

How about you?