{"id":919,"date":"2008-07-19T23:08:02","date_gmt":"2008-07-20T07:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=919"},"modified":"2008-07-19T23:08:02","modified_gmt":"2008-07-20T07:08:02","slug":"atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/atp-fantasy-tennis-picks-for-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"ATP Fantasy Tennis Picks for Toronto"},"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

This week’s submission deadline is Monday, July 21, 10am (EST) in the U.S.\/4pm (CET) in Europe.<\/p>\n

This week we have the first of consecutive Masters Series events. We start with Toronto and next week we\u2019re in Cincinnati. Consecutive Masters events are tough on the players, especially on hard court in hot North American summers, so the results can be wildly unpredictable. Last year five of the top eight seeds reached the quarterfinals but the year before, only one did.<\/p>\n

We need eight players for our fantasy team so let\u2019s pick the quarterfinalists.<\/p>\n

Toronto draw<\/a> (hard court, first prize: $420,000)<\/p>\n

The first thing you\u2019ll notice is that the prize money is about $133,000 less than it is for European Masters events. Blame the weak U.S. dollar. And remember that this tournament rotates yearly between Montreal and Toronto.<\/p>\n

Fernando Gonzalez reached the semifinals here two years ago but last summer he lost his first match in every hard court event and he\u2019s 1-11 against Roger Federer, so Federer has a pretty easy path to the quarterfinals. But should I use him? I used him in Hamburg, the French Open, and Wimbledon, so I can only use him twice more. I\u2019ll use him for the U.S. Open but he\u2019s reached the finals at Madrid the past two years and remember that Madrid will pay $133,000 more to the winner than Toronto. I\u2019m saving Federer for Madrid.<\/p>\n

Who do I pick in Federer\u2019s section? Gonzalez is 7-1 over Jose Acasuso and Gulbis and Benneteau have never done much here, so Gonzalez it is.<\/p>\n

In Andy Roddick\u2019s section, Tommy Robredo has won only two matches on hard court this year and Marin Cilic started well on hard court then tailed off. Janko Tipsarevic, on the other hand, beat Roddick at Wimbledon and pushed Federer to 10-8 in the fifth set at the Australian Open. The problem is that Tipsarevic has never played in the main draw at Toronto, Montreal, or Cincinnati. He has very little experience on the summer hard court swing while Roddick reached the quarterfinals last year and is 11-3 on hard court this year. I\u2019ve only picked Roddick twice this year so Roddick it is.<\/p>\n

Wow, Nikolay Davydenko is 16-4 on hard court this year including a title in Miami. He also reached the quarterfinals here last year and the semifinals at Cincinnati. Is there any reason not to pick him? There might be. I used him in Rome, Hamburg, and Roland Garros and I was going to use him at the U.S. Open (he reached the semifinals the past two years) and Moscow (he won the title the past two years). Davydenko probably won\u2019t get past the quarterfinals here because James Blake is 6-0 over him and Radek Stepanek has beaten him the last three times they\u2019ve played. The quarterfinals here pay $51,000 whereas a title in Moscow is worth $170,000, so I\u2019m saving Davydenko for Moscow.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m in a bind because Mikhail Youzhny has a 1-4 record against Davydenko and Tommy Haas hasn\u2019t been past the third round here since 2002. I\u2019m going with Nicolas Kiefer because he\u2019s beaten Youzhny the last two times they\u2019ve played.<\/p>\n

Dmitry Tursunov beat James Blake this week in Indianapolis but I think Stepanek will take Tursunov out. Stepanek is 1-4 against Blake on outdoor hard court but Blake has never been past the second round here. I\u2019m going with Blake anyway because last year he pulled out of his second round match due to injury and the year before he lost to Richard Gasquet who made it to the final.<\/p>\n

The last time this tournament was in Toronto, Andy Murray reached the semifinals whereas Stanislas Wawrinka has never been past the second round. Murray also beat Wawrinka in Doha earlier this year. Sam Querrey has a 16-6 record on hard court this year but he hasn\u2019t done well at big events and Marat Safin has one win on hard court. I\u2019m going with Murray.<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic is 16-2 on hard court this year and he beat Federer in the final last year when this tournament was in Montreal. Fernando Verdasco has a losing record on hard court and he\u2019s never done well here or in Cincinnati. Canas won this event in 2002 but he hasn\u2019t done anything on the summer hard court swing since then. Mario Ancic and Robin Soderling have never been past the third round here or in Cincinnati. Frank Dancevic reached the quarterfinals last year but he\u2019s 1-3 on hard court this year. Djokovic it is because he\u2019s never played well in Cincinnati and I\u2019m saving my last pick on him for the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

Richard Gasquet and David Ferrer shouldn\u2019t have much trouble getting to the fourth round, but who\u2019ll win the match between them when they get there? Ferrer is 3-0 over Gasquet so the choice looks obvious but it\u2019s not because Ferrer has never been past the second round here. Gasquet reached the final two years ago but that\u2019s the only time he\u2019s been past the second round either here or in Cincinnati. I would usually go with one-on-one record over tournament record but only one of Ferrer\u2019s wins over Gasquet was on outdoor hard court so I\u2019m picking Gasquet.<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal\u2019s section is pretty weak but I can\u2019t use him because I\u2019m saving my last pick on him for the U.S. Open. Tomas Berdych has a 2-0 record over Nieminen, beat Igor Andreev in Miami this year, beat Gael Monfils in Dubai, reached the quarterfinals the last time this tournament was in Toronto, and he has a 3-1 record over Nadal on hard court. He\u2019s my best hope outside of Nadal so I\u2019m taking him.<\/p>\n

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

Here are my picks: Gonzalez, Roddick, Kiefer, Blake, Murray, Djokovic, Gasquet, and Berdych.<\/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-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","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=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}