Pacific Life Open Men's Quarterfinal Preview

This post is cross-posted to Craig Hickman's Tennis Blog:

1)FEDERER, Roger SUI (14)FERRER, David ESP vs (12)DJOKOVIC, Novak SRB

After Roger Federer lost his opening round match for the first time in nearly 3 years to Guillermo Cañas (who promptly lost his next round match to Carlos Moya) this quarter of the draw opened up considerably. Ferrer beat his countryman, the pulchritudinous Moya in a tough 3-setter while Djokovic destroyed French pretender Julien Benneteau 6-3, 6-1. Presumably the young Serbian will not have any of his infamous breathing difficuties in the beautiful clear air of Indian Wells. These two have only played once before nearly 3 years ago when Djokovic was twelve. The Serbian will show the Spaniard how much he has grown up since. Mad Professah's Pick: Djokovic.

(13)MURRAY, Andy GBR vs (9)HAAS, Tommy GER

The young Scot Murray took out the always surprisingly hard-to-beat Nikolay Davydenko relatively easy after winning the match in two error-prone, sketchy sets 7-6(3) 6-4. Haas took out the 2007 Australian Open finalist Fernando González relatively easily 6-3 6-2. These quarterfinalists are the two of the hottest players on the tour, with both of them only having lost 3 matches (and each has won an ATP tour title) so far. Surpisingly, they have not played each other before. Tommy Haas is one of MadProfessah's players to watch for 2007. I think he will get all the way to the Pacific Life Open final. Mad Professah's pick: Haas.

(8)LJUBICIC, Ivan CRO vs (3)RODDICK, Andy USA

The New Roddick™ played an excellent match versus French wunderkind Richard Gasquet to get into this quarterfinal match against the hard-serving Croatian. Both players were +18 (more winners than errors) and at one point in the brilliant first set Gasquet(!) finished off his service game by serving three consecutive aces. However after getting into the tiebreak the shotmaking Frenchman's forehand became unglued and once he lost that set and an early break in the next set the match was effectively over: 7-6(2), 6-3. Ljubicic had a good win over Argentine grinder David Nalbandian despite dropping the first set: 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.The last two years Ljubicic has lost to the eventual tournament champion (Federer) and I suspect that will happen this year also. Mad Professah's pick: Roddick.

(30)CHELA, Juan Ignacio ARG vs (2)NADAL, Rafael ESP
Funny how Federer's dip in play seems to have coincided with Nadal's surge. Due to the Pacific Life's middle Sunday's seed massacre Chela has not had to play a seeded player to get to this quarterfinal. Chela and Nadal have only played twice before and only once on hard courts (2004 Cincinatti which was won by Chela 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(3) in an incredibly close match). I suepect this match will be closer than people expect, but Nadal 2007 is a much better playwe than Nadal 2007, and probably Chela 2007. Mad Professah's pick: Nadal.