ATP - Belgrade Wednesday Preview

Albert Montanes vs Michael Berrer

Montanes enjoyed one of the best spells of his career this time last year, beating Roger Federer on the way to the Estoril title. The Spaniard opted not to head to Portugal and defend his title, choosing instead the weaker draw in Belgrade. Montanes enjoyed a decent start to the clay-court season reaching the semi-finals in Casablanca but he will have been disappointed with a straight sets third round loss to Gilles Simon in Monte Carlo a couple of weeks ago.

Berrer is not renowned for his clay-court prowess and actually lost in qualifying for Monte Carlo but he managed to battle through a first round clash with qualifier Alex Peya earlier this week in three sets.  Berrer has won their only previous match but that was at Wimbledon four years ago on Montanes' least favourite surface - grass.

Fernando Gonzalez vs Feliciano Lopez

Gonzalez admitted to being nervous before his first match in nearly eight months at the Serbia Open on Tuesday, following a long layoff after hip surgery.

However the former world number five got the job done, defeating Martin Klizan comfortably 6-2, 6-4 in blustery conditions on centre court. “I haven’t played for a long time but my shots are already in my game,” Gonzalez said afterwards. “I’m moving better every day but I need to play more matches, more points and I need to compete. Maybe the conditions today weren’t really good for a great match but it was good for tough competition.”

Lopez won a predictably tight match against eighth seed Juan Monaco 6-4, 7-5 and afterwards blamed the wind for the erratic quality of the tennis. It's another step in the right direction for Lopez who endured a tough start to the year but started to find his form at the Barcelona Open last week, making the quarters. Gonzalez has never lost to Lopez in four matches but the last time they played was in 2006 and much has changed since then.

Novak Djokovic vs Adrian Ungur

In Djokovic's absence, Rafa Nadal has stolen all the plaudits over the past month, picking up titles in Monte Carlo and Barcelona. It will be intriguing to see how Djokovic responds over the next couple of weeks with the duo likely to go head-to-head at the Madrid and Rome Masters.  Before that, the big question is whether Djokovic can maintain his current unbeaten start to the year. He won the inaugural Serbia Open two years ago and will be hot favourite this year with many of the bigger names opting to compete in either Munich or Estoril this week. He is supremely confident in his game at the moment, saying that his start to the season is a result of all the hard work over the years finally paying off. "I have matured as a player and a person," Djokovic explained. "I feel more confident and more consistent because I am capable of holding my own against the world's best players under any circumstances." "That wasn't the case earlier [in my career]... whenever I needed to be consistent against [Roger] Federer and Nadal in the latter stages of grand slam events I was unable to stay psychologically balanced and confident."

Ungur came through qualifying at the weekend without dropping a set before seeing off Spain's Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo in the opening round to earn his moment in the sun against the top seed. However there are few signs that the world number 170 can upset the world number two especially with a partisan Belgrade crowd desperate to spur their hero all the way to the title this week.

Blaz Kavcic vs Ricard Mello

Ricardo Mello won a major victory in the debut of ATP 250 Belgrade against the last year runner-up. The first set had just one break-point taken by the Brazilian who kept his serve until the end. Isner gave some weak up signs in the second set but was just a fluke as Mello bounced back and forced a tie-break, despite his 18 aces Isner suffered on court while Mello served very well through out the match. It will be the first meeting with Kavcic who beat Kamke for the second time in two weeks, it was a tough first set as Kamke put a lot of fight while in the second set he went down in confidence. The Brazilian made a solid match against Isner in first round and if he will keep the same level he will meet most probable Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals.

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