ATP - Estoril Wednesday Preview

Robin Soderling vs. Jeremy Chardy

Robin Soderling aims to get his clay-court season back on track when he takes on Jeremy Chardy in the second round of the Estoril Open. Soderling enjoyed a brilliant start to the season, picking up three titles in the first couple of months but his run of form was derailed by a knee injury in March. Soderling returned to the tour at the Barcelona Open last week but looked distinctly out of sorts during an opening round defeat to Ivan Dodig. 

However Soderling can draw confidence from the fact that Chardy has been in an even greater slump recently. The Frenchman lost in the opening rounds of Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo and decided to drop down a level and take a wildcard into the Napoli challenger last week only to crash out first round there too.  He finally managed to pick up a win earlier this week, seeing off France's Adrian Mannarino 6-4, 6-3 but his chances of upsetting the world number five do not look too great. Till now, Soderling has won their only previous match 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in Beijing two years ago.

Roger-Vasselin Edouard vs. Bellucci Thomaz

After a poor start, which came to be losing by 5 / 2, the Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci recovered, and made nine consecutive games to seal his first ATP victory in Estoril. He needed some time to adjust the pace, especially his depth as he played too linear in the beginning but after that he managed to cruise through out the match.

He will meet now the Frenchman Roger-Vasselin who beat another Brazilian in first round. The Frenchman controlled the match but also lost his serve twice during the match but Marcos won only 43% points behind the serve. The Frenchman plays with some confidence recently but he isn’t on his favorite surface but conditions are a little bit faster as is expected a sunny day and Roger-Vasselin can be a tricky player, he is a good baseliner with good shots from both wings but against left hander has some problems with sideways movement especially with cross court balls as he is catch unprepared.

Tsonga Jo Wilfried vs. Cuevas Pablo

These days the Frenchman Jo Wilfried Tsonga keep the headlines with his split with coach Winogradsky. He played in Monte Carlo where he beat Monaco, who is in poor form recently and lost to Ljubicic, he was tough when his serve entered but after that he easily went down. He will meet Cuevas who cruised in the first round. The Uruguayan lost only two points behind the serve against Riba and looked in great form. He has a powerful serve of his own and is a player who doesn’t give rhythm, he starts that from retrieving and will be harder for Tsonga to read Cuevas’ game while Tsonga will rely on his powerful serve and forehand but the pressure will be on his side when that will fail.

Falla Alejandro vs. Del Potro Juan Martin

Despite widespread favoritism, Argentine Juan Martin del Potro had to sweat in order to win on debut at Estoril. He was pushed to three sets by local player Pedro Sousa. Playing his first clay court tournament of the year, Del Potro started strong against the Portuguese but being off behind the serve in the second he was pushed to work his way through the second round. Falla edged slightly closer to the final when his opponent was forced to retire after nearly two hours of play. They have two meetings until now and they split the wins, Del Potro won back in 2007 in Estoril. Both meetings were close and looking at the match it’s announce once more a tough match as neither looked impressed on court and if the Argentine will have same downs on serve then Falla can exploit that.