He could face Henman in R4, if he gets far. Very tough draw for Andy! But the good thing for Andy, is that he has beaten these players before bar Safin, so he can do it. If he really wants to play in the Masters Cup then he must beat the best to play the best! What i find strange is that the Indian Wells tournament for the mens MD is only for 9 days!
i dont think it thats tough a draw, openeing mach vs garutnee v a qualfier. andy can beat safin and tim no problems, davy as the top seed isnt too bad, bettr him han fed, balke, haas, gonzo, novak imo.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
That is quite a tough draw - I know it could have been worse but that's quite a collection of talent and varying styles there. I would never write Safin off against anybody - it depends on where his head is on any given day and Davydenko doesn't have a style that matches up that well with Andy. I know Andy won at the start of the year, but still - it's tough. Still - providing he beats his qualifier - it's all points in the bank.
I think Safin is a much more comfortable prospect than Davydenko - Safin's nightmare player is Santoro and Murray's style has more than a few echoes of the Magician when he's playing well. I can see him tying Safin up in knots by getting a lot of balls back then putting it past him time after time.
Davydenko is a tricky nut for Murray to crack. In the past Murray has sorta let the match be played on Davydenko's terms and he's ended up on a full pitched run back and forth while Davydenko moves the ball metronomically from corner to corner. In Doha he was a lot better at getting Davydenko more off-balance and he'll need to do the same again. Even so, Nikolay is a tricky prospect because he can handle Murray's off-pace balls well, he just tees off on them. Murray is much better off knifing slice through short and trying to draw Davydenko into hitting tricky low shots then passing him. I hope he can do that should they meet this time.
I think he'd have preferred being in Federer or Nadal's quarter just for the challenge of facing one of them again - in terms of getting through the draw he may have favoured Roddick's quarter, though that's a pretty congested section in its own right.
No easy draws at a TMS though so it's a good job he likes a challenge
Yup - I agree. Davydenko is the guy who is the most problematic out the two (which is why I'm hoping Querry or Tim can take him out early ) but it's probably because I am a massive Safin fan I still think he has the potential to do real damage on his day which makes him very dangerous to anyone. Of course, his brain is missing more often than not it seems so it's more than likely that Andy has a better than average chance of beating him if he gets past his qualifier.