ATP Stuttgart – Men’s Monday Preview

Sergiy Stakhvosky vs. Jaroslav Pospisil

The forecast shows rain in the morning but things are clear after that to open the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart. Jaroslav Pospisil is on his second time in his career in an ATP tournament held on clay since Gstaad back in 2005.

He plays well on clay but on lower level, Challenger and Futures and play mostly on this surface. He likes long rallies and relies on opponent errors, is quick around the court, a good defensive baseliner. Stakhovsky returns to clay and overall this year played good on faster clay courts with third round in Madrid and French Open. The Ukrainian is on his second visit in Stuttgart, he has the better serve to win free points but he tends to struggle to find a way to hit through more compact baseliners, losing to Ferrer twice, Nieminen, Starace, Gil only this year.

The Czech played more on the surface recently, reaching the quarter-finals in Braunschweig, they already met once back in 2008 on carpet and he has the opportunity to make a solid match, he will rely on his solid defense and the Ukrainian isn’t the most patient player to build his points on court.

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez vs. Radek Stepanek

Another Czech is drawn to play today, Radek Stepanek will meet Spaniard Garcia-Lopez in first round.

Stepanek played well recently, not only on faster ground like grass, but he reached semi-final in Munich and Prostejov Challenger on clay before that and is returning to Stuttgart since 2004.

Garcia-Lopez is 1/3 in Stuttgart managing to beat only Navarro. The Spaniard reached third round in Madrid and French Open but overall played better on faster grounds.

Not an easy match as is hard to read something in Stepanek’s motivation, he has the game to take this one with powerful serve and a lot of variety on the ground putting Garcia-Lopez always in expectative. Garcia-Lopez has a solid serve of his own, more placed then powerful, but is a good retriever and a solid baseliner who can keep Stepanek way behind the baseline. The Czech played more consistently recently.