ATP Nice Monday Preview

Pere Riba vs. Guillaume Rufin

Both players managed to qualify, Riba beat Clement, Brizzi and Russell while Rufin won against Fernandes, Bloemke and Renavand.

The Spaniard is in good form, he managed to qualify for Rome and Madrid but lost in first round while the Frenchman played in lower circuit recently as he still is in search of his game as he returned from a period where was injured.

Rufin has a powerful serve and clean shots from both wings, he can resist well in long rallies but also he likes to advance to the net to finish the points quickly. Usually Rufin hasn’t problems with compact baseliners, he has wins over Monaco, Ventura, Recouderc, Minar only last year, he plays at home and he will see this one as a good opportunity to grab some points, he needs to remain patient and go for his shots when he see an opportunity.

Romanian Victor Hanescu failed to impress recently even that he qualified for Rome and Madrid, some confidence in his game misses. Paire beat Eysseric, Bubka and Balleret to advance in the main draw and the last two were tough matches. Also the Frenchman has some consistency but in lower circuit, Challenger. Paire looks like Mathieu regarding style of play with solid serve and powerful baseline display and he likes to play on slow courts where his defense is stronger.

The Romanian is in search of form prior to Roland Garros but also the Romanian is an opportunist and see this opportunity to grab some free points, the match stays on Romanian racquet.    

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov will hope to start with a win the Open de Nice Cote d’Azur as he is celebrating his birthday today.

He reached the quarter-finals in Munich but lost in second round in Prague Challenger and seems that is hard for him now to found a motivation in Challenger level.

Overall played consistently recently and is 4/4 on the surface this year. He knows Andujar as he defeated the Spaniard last year on clay and overall he has his shots as is coming in better from. Since he won the title in Casablanca, Adujar lost 4 matches in a row and beat only Gerard Granollers-Pujol, retiring with back problems in Estoril.

The Bulgarian has a powerful serve and will win a lot of points behind the serve, clean shots from both wings and can change the pace well, Andujar needs to play his same aggressive tennis which gave him the title in Casablanca but he looks without rhythm and his serve is attackable.    

Both players are in searching of some rhythm prior to Roland Garros, especially Istomin who has only one win since February and who withdrew with left leg injury in Munich. The Uzbekistan player claims that he is in good physical conditions but with Roland Garros just near the corner he might not push too much.

The Belgian reached the quarter-finals last year beating Soderling in his way and he played well recently. He also has a mixing record against powerful players; he has lost to Anderson, Berdych, Golubev, Reister but has wins over Petzschner, Zemlja, Soderling, Ramos on clay.

The clay will negate the power of Istomin’s serve and ground strokes and Rochus is a good retriever who chase a lot of balls and with his strong defense will force Istomin to play aggressive and commit errors, but also Istomin generate a lot of power to hit through Belgian’s defense.

Overall the match stay in Rochus’ racquet as he looks more consistent then Istomin but in a given day the Uzbekistan can found a serving day to serve out for the match and a surprise isn’t out of cards.  

When the Frenchman Roger-Vasselin starts to found some rhythm and plays consistently he suffers a let down. That happened in Rome Challenger where he withdrew with left leg injury after solid tennis showed in Barcelona and Estoril.

He will meet Andreas Seppi in first round, the Italian returned to the circuit last week in Rome and showed a grueling tennis against Monaco being pushed by the crowd. The Italian is here to found his game until Roland Garros and overall neither has some action on the surface recently.

The Frenchman isn’t the best retriever but is a good baseliner with good shots from both wings and can resist well in long rallies as Seppi doesn’t generate power of his own to hit through out his defense.

Seppi looks the handier player on court but he has only one match since March, it looks like a match with a lot of struggling on court with both player searching their game.