Haas has a potentially banana-skin first round against Sam Querrey, although this is clay. Having said that, Haas does have to come back over from Belgium and adjust from red clay to the green clay they are using for the final year in Houston.

Blake beat Sanguinetti.

Haas finally begins his campaign to defend last year's semi- final points against Querrey.  If he goes out before the semis, Andy is world number 10!

C'mon Sam!

Voodoo dolls of Haas at the ready!

-- Edited by RobC at 09:54, 2007-04-11

On court now: 3-3* Querrey to serve.

.....And Sam breaks: 0-1* Querrey!

Haas leading 5-2 second set now. This is his set. I suspect it's also his match now - I feel Sam needed to do this in two.

Basically I don't have enough confidence in Querrey to believe he is yet tough enough to come back and take the third set - it looks to me like Haas has battened down the hatches now and it should be his to take. If Sam does win this he'll have taken a big mental leap forward, in my book.

It's quite important too - if Andy does get to #10 this week on the strength of a Haas loss early in Houston, he'll be seeded #8 in Monte Carlo and get a bye into R2. If he doesn't, he'll be seeded #9 and have to play R1 (MC has byes for the top 8 seeds this year, 56 draw - and Roddick and Blake have officially withdrawn today)

As I speak Querrey has broken for 3-1.

Well now, this is an interesting development.

Querrey holds for 4-1

If he can just hang on two more service games....