{"id":711,"date":"2007-10-14T13:06:42","date_gmt":"2007-10-14T21:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=711"},"modified":"2007-10-14T13:06:42","modified_gmt":"2007-10-14T21:06:42","slug":"atp-fantasy-picks-for-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/atp-fantasy-picks-for-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks for Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re deep into the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season<\/a> so check out my Fantasy Tennis Guide<\/a>. You\u2019ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sign up 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

The deadline for picking your team this week is Monday morning: 1am in Los Angeles\/4am in New York\/9am in London. Make you picks before you go to bed Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Rear View Mirror<\/b> – a look at last week\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

I picked two of the three winners and jumped from number 53 to number 14 in the standings. Remember, though, that I took Novak Djokovic and the sure $183,000 in Vienna so I may pay for that in Madrid and Paris because I can\u2019t pick him any more.<\/p>\n

This is a huge week because Madrid is a Masters Series event with lots of points and there are a number of players who can still qualify for the year end championships \u2013 only the top eight players qualify. It\u2019ll be too late for most people by the time the Paris Masters rolls around in two weeks.<\/p>\n

We need eight players so let\u2019s pick the top two players in each quarter of the draw \u2013 in other words, the quarterfinalists.<\/p>\n

Madrid<\/b> (indoor hard, first prize: $468,860)<\/p>\n

Roger Federer\u2019s Quarter<\/b><\/p>\n

I still have one Federer left so I\u2019m picking him because he\u2019s 10-2 here and he won last year.<\/p>\n

Now I have the toughest pick in the draw. David Ferrer is on fire but he has a losing career record indoors. He got to the quarterfinals in Madrid two years ago but he beat clay court players to get there. Also, Feliciano Lopez is in his part of the draw and he beat Ferrer in Stockholm last year.<\/p>\n

Ivan Ljubicic has a clear path to the third round so I\u2019m picking him.<\/p>\n

Nikolay Davydenko\u2019s Quarter<\/b><\/p>\n

Nikolay Davydenko has never gone past the third round in Madrid and he could meet Ivo Karlovic in his first match if Karlovic can get past Marat Safin. I can only use Davydenko one more time so I\u2019m saving him for Paris which he won last year.<\/p>\n

Safin got to the quarterfinals in Madrid last year and won it the year before. On the other hand, Karlovic is 11-3 on indoor hard court this year and he won the title in Vienna. Safin has been playing so badly this year that I have to go with Karlovic.<\/p>\n

I’m ignoring Mikhail Youzhny and Stanislaw Wawrinka because Youzhny has lost in the first round in Madrid the past three years and Wawrinka has never played Madrid and hasn’t done well in Paris.<\/p>\n

Tommy Haas got to the semifinals in Stockholm last week and he has an 11-2 record on hard court this year, but he\u2019s never been past the third round in Madrid. I can only use him one more time so I\u2019m saving him for Paris where he got to the semifinals last year.<\/p>\n

The question in this part of the draw is whether we can count on Fernando Gonzalez to turn up. He got to the final here last year but he\u2019s still up and down this year. What the hell, he doesn\u2019t do well in Paris and I can only use him one more time so I\u2019m going with Gonzalez.<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic\u2019s Quarter<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in trouble here because I\u2019ve used Djokovic up and James Blake is 0-3 in Madrid.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have to choose between Richard Gasquet and Paul-Henri Mathieu to get my first pick in this section. Gasquet is 3-0 over Mathieu so I\u2019m taking Gasquet.<\/p>\n

Carlos Moya has one victory indoors in the last two years and Juan Carlos Ferrero got to the semifinals in Vienna so I\u2019m taking Ferrero who will only get to the third round before he loses to Djokovic.<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal\u2019s Quarter<\/b><\/p>\n

I used up all my Rafael Nadal picks on the clay and hard court season.<\/p>\n

David Nalbandian reached the semifinals the past two years but he\u2019s playing badly. I\u2019m picking Tomas Berdych over Tommy Robredo because Robredo hasn\u2019t gone past the third round the past two years.<\/p>\n

Assuming Marcos Baghdatis continues to flounder, the tough pick is between Andy Murray and Radek Stepanek who unfortunately meet in the first round. Murray beat Stepanek on grass in their only meeting and Murray\u2019s record indoors is far better so I\u2019m picking him.<\/p>\n

Madrid Draw<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Here\u2019s my team: Federer, Ljubicic, Karlovic, Gonzalez, Gasquet, Ferrero, Berdych, Murray.<\/p>\n

Happy fantasies!<\/p>\n\n

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We\u2019re deep into the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season so check out my 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. The deadline for picking your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21,22,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ams-madrid","category-atp-players","category-atp-tournaments","category-fantasy-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","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=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}