1st round ties are often tricky for Andy - since the start of 2008 he's lost 6 times in his first match in a tournament but only once in his second match.

He should have too much for Chela though. Murray 7-6 6-3 6-2.


BTW... Chela's only 29? He seems to have been around for ever.

Hewitt in 4
Gulbis in 4
Ferrer in 3
Golubev in 4
Cilic in 3

Final: Nadal to beat Federer in 4

Hi Guy,s

Hello!

Andy plays sunday,

Yep. 4th on Lenglen, I'd guess maybe about 4pm BST.

anyone point me to a stream please

------> stream

 

Thanks
Geo.

No probs.

I wouldn't favour him against Wawa. He's one to avoid.

This is one where I always seem to be out of step with most of the people here.

I simply don't rate Wawrinka - he doesn't seem to have anything that separates him from any one of a dozen other decent clay-courters. To me he seems like a borderline top 20 player that went above his natural ranking last year on the back of one good tournament, and I've yet to see anything from him that convinces me he's in for an extended stay in the top 20 let alone a return to the top 10. Whatever it is that other people see in him, I just don't.

Not saying I'm definitely right, just calling it the way I see it.

I just had a look through your spreadsheet, and I think it's very impressive. I like the way you've done all the calculations, very clever!

Thank you. I'd probably say the same about yours, except I've not had a chance to examine it yet.

I've got a few points though:

I'll have a look at these at some point, but probably not till the weekend as I'm taking my wife out for our wedding anniversary tomorrow. It wouldn't surprise me if there were some teething problems though, that's partly why I put it up here for people to pull apart.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks Mark.

As Yamor says, we don't know for sure how the ATP are going to transition to the new system. I'm assuming they keep going as they are until the end of the season. If everyone plays at least 4 500s then I'm not sure it matters.

And I think it works. It produced the correct rankings last week and this week, anyway.

Very interesting, Yamor.

I've actually got something very similar through to the end of the year, only problem is it's in excel 2007 so can't be uploaded to the site (and won't work on earlier versions of excel). If anyone's interested, let me know.

So who do people see as the danger men from lower down in the draw? Who do we want Andy to avoid? He can meet anyone currently ranked outside the top 12 before the QF.

Personally I think Ferrer, Robredo and Wawrinka are as bad as it gets, and I'd favour Andy against any of them. C'mon Andy! 

The quarter final should be the target for me. I view the top 4 on clay as being Nadal, Fed, Djok, Verdasco, with Andy in that 5-8 group alongside guys like Del Potro and Davydenko.

With this in mind a semi final, two quarter finals and just one failure would be a decent return on the clay season.

The only problem is that at Roland Garros he'll have to win 4 matches to reach the quarters as opposed to 2 matches at the other events. Here's hoping for a good draw.

 

I seem to be the Andy Murray of RTR - good in Masters, but falling short in Slams. On that basis, you'll all shoot back past me at RG and SW19.

Nadal in 2.

Just back in time...

I'm away for the weekend, so my semi picks are:

Fed beats Murray or Del Potro in 2
Murray or Del P beat Roddick in 2

Nadal beats Djok or Ljub in 2
Djok beats Verdasco in 2
Verdasco beats Ljub in 2

And I know it doesn't count, but my unofficial final prediction is:

Nadal beats <insert name here> in 2

Federer in 2
Murray in 2
Nadal in 2
Djokovic in 2

Everyone's got almost identical predictions so far.

I think what Rafa means is that by accumulating results over 2 years you reduce the volatility of the rankings; one bad result or one missed tournament is a smaller percentage of your total, so the pressure to play if you're carrying an injury is reduced. I can see where he's coming from, but I think there are better ways of revamping the ranking system to achieve the same result.

The way it's written Nole seems to be being a dick, although I'm always wary of taking these things out of context.

Philip - yes, Andy would have been world number 1 prior to the Aussie Open this year based on a 6-month ranking. Which is kind of stupid given that there was no clay or grass in that ranking. Also, this wouldn't fix what Nole's winging about - you've still got points dropping off as sharply as they come on.

In theory, it would arguably be better if results were given a linear decay rather than a step drop after 1 year, so as results slip further into the past their impact on rankings gradually diminishes. This leaves a problem in terms of the weight of different surfaces changing throughout the year though.

Andy always looked in control of that set to me. Constant pressure on the Robredo serve, and I'd have backed him to win a tie-break if it came to it.

In other news, Del Potro-Wawrinka looks like going to a third.