{"id":416,"date":"2006-08-12T18:34:16","date_gmt":"2006-08-13T02:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=416"},"modified":"2006-08-12T18:34:16","modified_gmt":"2006-08-13T02:34:16","slug":"cincinnati-2006-worth-a-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/cincinnati-2006-worth-a-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati 2006: worth a million"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you happen to need a million dollars? If so, pick every winner in the draw at this week’s Cincinnati Masters Event and your need is fulfilled. The contest is called the Penn Pick’em Contest and you can enter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Be advised that only those in certain geographical areas can enter – New Yorkers and Floridians do not qualify for some reason – and it’s kinda, sorta, one million dollars. The winner gets $25,000 a year for forty years. Tell me what $25,000 will buy you in 2046 compared to today. That is if you’re still alive. I imagine many people bought a house for $25,000 forty years ago. In my neighborhood, $25,000 wouldn’t buy the windows.<\/p>\n

In a previous column<\/a> I mentioned that God watches over the stupid. While there is truth to that, it only goes so far. Previously I stupidly chose Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal the week after they’d played a five hour final on clay. Obviously they withdrew. Last week I picked the draw for Toronto, went off to the Hollywood Bowl with my picnic basket to enjoy a staged reading of Sunset Blvd., and … FORGOT TO SUBMIT MY FANTASY TEAM!$%^@#!!!! Andy Murray helped a bit and Nadal lost early which held off the Federer-Nadal pickers, but I left over $400,000 on the table.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s the second Masters Event in a row and the winner gets $400,000 again. The ATP has said that it plans to dismantle the Masters Series format but I think that’s a bad idea. Last week’s event had nine of the top ten players and Cincinnati is scheduled to have eight of the top ten. The women’s event in Montreal, on the other hand, has four of their top ten players, a miserable showing and patently unfair to the tournament and its fans. Scheduling consecutive Masters Series events – the ATP does this three times each year – is too much, but keep the format else the ATP might start to look like the no-show WTA.<\/p>\n

I expect that Nadal will be mad about his early exit to Tomas Berdych last week and will make the final in Cincinnati. James Blake has been a little up and down lately so, even though he is 2-0 over Nadal and has the flat strokes to beat Nadal – as does Berdych, I have Nadal over Blake if Blake gets that far. I’m concerned about Blake. He’s number six in the world but his mild manner worries me. Does he have enough desire to stay at number six or win a slam? I’m not sure.<\/p>\n

The first round match between David Ferrer and Carlos Moya is very hard to pick because Moya is 5-0 over Ferrer, but Moya is aging quickly this year and Ferrer is playing sporadically well. I have Ferrer in the quarters.<\/p>\n

Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt and Guillermo Coria have pulled out.<\/p>\n

Beware of Davydenko again. Juan Ignacio Chela has a 4-0 record over him.<\/p>\n

Fernando Gonzalez has been playing well and David Nalbandian has not. Nalbandian hasn’t been paying attention since the World Cup. Is he tired of tennis or still bothered by an injury to his abdominals? I have Gonzalez in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Roddick is also recovering from a muscle pull but I have him in the semis because he has a weak draw. Could be wishful thinking on my part since I’d like to get the most out of him in the hard court season. He doesn’t have a good indoor record.<\/p>\n

I expect Baghdatis to go down early since this not a slam. That leaves David Ferrer, Marat Safin, and Thomas Johansson to see who falls down first before they lose to Gonzalez.<\/p>\n

I would not pick Richard Gasquet despite the fact that he got to this week’s final and won the title at Gstaad. His conditioning has been suspect and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him pull out. If he does play, I don’t expect him to last.<\/p>\n

My quarterfinalists are: Federer, Roddick, Gonzalez, Ferrer, Malisse, Ljubicic, Blake, and Nadal. And good luck with the not-adjusted-for-inflation million dollars.<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

You can read last week\u2019s picks here<\/a> if you want to see whether I know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n


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

Do you happen to need a million dollars? If so, pick every winner in the draw at this week’s Cincinnati Masters Event and your need is fulfilled. The contest is called the Penn Pick’em Contest and you can enter here. Be advised that only those in certain geographical areas can enter – New Yorkers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}