So it was here last year that Baghdatis made his first final, Murray played Henman for the first time and Gonzo won his 7th and most recent title....

Draw



(1)Federer vs Zib
Reister vs GArcia-Lopez
Novak vs Hajek
Chiudinelli vs (5)Ferrer

(9)Chela vs Volandri
Becker vs Schrichipan
Thomann vs Kholschreiber
Montanes vs (7)Acasuso

(6)Murray vs Del Potro
Burgsmeller vs Bastl
Fish vs Vanek
Bolelli vs (3)Gonzalez

(8)Calleri vs Wawrinka
Henman vs C.Rochus
Ramirez-Hidalgo vs Lopez
Karanusic vs (2)Nalbandian


Interesting match ups in the first round are

Murray vs Del Potro- Two youngsters, Del Potro is really in the same position as Murray was last year-Using WCs to boost his ranking.....

Calleri vs Wawrinka- This could be close or even in favour of Wawrinka....

Go Del Potro ;)

Very patriotic of you Dl :lol:

Well i'm not Scottish ;) roflmao

I know, but being Scotish is only awarded to the best of the best :lol:

you're too patriotic roflmao

Please please please let Tim get to his quarter against Bandy and give him a good stuffing :pray: :pray:

Federer looks good until the final. Gonzalez and Tim are threats to get there but he will beat them easily I think.

The other final threats are Murray and Nalbandian. Despite Murray's Cincinnatti win I think Federer on form and in full health will easily beat him too (though this match is a little more doubtful). If he gets Nalbandian it might be a tough match or maybe like Madrid another massacre will be on the cards.

federer will romp to the title.

if he wins at basel, is it possible that he'll withdraw from paris indoors. it seems like a lot of tennis being played leading up to YEC.

Well, he said in the interview after the Madrid final that so long as his ankle was uninjured, he'd be playing in both.

andy murray better watch out. del potro may be young but he's a giant man with a huge game to match. he slaughtered ginepri 6-2 6-2 a couple of weeks ago. if murray really is "mentallly shattered" (feeble excuse imo) he won't beat the argentine. here's hoping. ;)

i'm praying for the henman v bandy rematch. come on timmy! :)

I would definitely give Wawrinka the edge over Calleri, based on:

Recent form - Calleri has gone out first round in 2 of his last 3 events. (Though one of the losses was to a higher ranked opponent.)
Last meeting - Wawrinka won in straight sets at Wimbledon.
Home crowd - Wawrinka will surely have the crowd support.

Murray vs. del Potro could be a good one, but I think Andy will win it.

I've always felt that he is likely to play all three tournaments, if he can. This guy doesn't seem to like withdrawing from a tournament unless he has to. Presumably he'll get a bye in Paris, so I imagine he'll be able to cope.

Go Roger! :bigwave:

That would be bloody fantastic. Mr. Blobby V Gentleman Tim ;)
What a great sport he is ;)
Or he could just trip him up on the way out of the locker room roflmao
It would be easier :rolleyes:

Del Potro. Another young Argentine who may scupper Murrays chances. He is huge has a huge serve and he is one of the up and coming young ones.

I think Nalbandians head to head V Henman is 5-1? not bad for Mr Blobby is it really?

Yeah i think enough with the Nalby calling now :)

The latest from Basel: (Nary a three-setter yet today, but Ferrer may force one.)


P. Srichaphan bt. B. Becker 76 76

G. Garcia-Lopez bt. J. Reister 76 62

J. Novak bt. J. Hajek 67 30 ret

M. Fish bt J. Vanek 64 63

P. Kohlschreiber bt. N. Thomann 61 75

R. Federer (1) bt. T. Zib 61 62

M. Chiudinelli vs. D. Ferrer (5) 76 14

G. Bastl vs. L. Burgsmuller

Basel can be watched live using Eurosport streaming. The quality is excellent and it is free. I saw the Federer Zib match (OK, the image is not much bigger than a few postage stamps but who cares) and you are treated to no commentary and no adverts.

Federer played yet another "youtube" shot at 5-2 in the second set. After retrieving a serve that would have aced most players, a couple of shots later he ran for a drop shot that looked to have beaten him and managed to scoop it up and over the net for a clean winner with something akin to squash shot. The crowd rewarded him with a standing ovation!

Thanks for destroying any hopes of getting on top of my work this week ... :angry: roflmao

You should be able to get a fullscreen picture from their site: if you go to their video page and select the basel feed, it should open in a Windows Media Player window [provided you use MS Windows; otherwise, I'm not sure]. Then you can right-click and select zoom -> Full Screen. Voila!

Matches over there for the day, though. And Baggy lost in Lyon :( He's really going to have to pick up his game a bit, I reckon. Anyway, later folks.

Hmm.. I have an Applemac.. and I can't access this... not fair!!! :cry:

I'll just have to hope that the 'youtube moment' that Nick C described actually becomes a youtube moment.. :(

a standing ovation.. wow!!! :bow: :bow:

Murray withdraws from the tournament with illness :o

Federer was absolutely awesome today. A very complete display :rolleyes:

I only discovered the live streaming at the end of thre match - just saw the final game :( But the crowd went mad - up on their feet applauding like madmen at th end of the set. Fed stood there with a big grin on his face. God, I hope he wins the tournament - awful let down if he doesn't :yikes:

I've just found out that I can access it after all, was just that there aren't any matches in Basel at 9:30pm!! Yay!

Mind you, they are on during the day aren't they, and I can't access overseas sites at work.. :angry: Means that I can only find out what's going on if someone bothers putting up live updates in amongst the spamming, fed/shara/troll bashing on the beeb (sigh..) :(

I can do scores on here if you want :shrug:

Federer in fantastic form today :o

That cross-court forehand he played in the second set- wow! :bow:

There's eerie genius with that forehand to Steffi Graf's, can hit such glorious winners on the run or anywhere on the court :)

Hey SG.. that's great if you can..! :D


Hope you're enjoying your half term break btw.. and you have those parties to look forward to as well!! Good stuff :ok:

When is Timbo playing? Wednesday? Looks like its all down to him again then.

I much prefer Tim to that brat :lol:

Well Tim has always been my favourite player so I am biased but Murray just has an awful lot to live up to with Tim . But to be fair he said Tim was always his hero and he would be delighted to have a career like he has had.
So we will see. But I just cannot see Murray ever be the darling of the centre court like Tim has been for all those years. Its his personality I think not his Tennis. As I think he is going to be a great player . But he needs to change his mental attitude first.
Even now I think Tim Henman is hungrier than him.

sorry to sound like a troll but murray's a tit and i refuse to cheer for him just because he has a british passport.

tim is my hero. end of story. :rolleyes:

Well I'm a Murray fan and I'd like it if he could go that step fartjer than Tim did but Tim gets my support too....

no offence to andy murray fans btw. each to their own. maybe he will go a step "fartjer" than tim before all is said and done. ;)

Tim up against Rochus then at 3:45pm Basel time tommorrow by the looks of it. Does anyone know what the time difference is between us and Switzerland?

And mine . End of story :D

I think only an hour :pray: . Tim will do it I am sure on wednesday

Pheeeeeeew thats ok then :D Nightmare when they played in Japan because it was about an 8 hour time difference :yikes:

Yes I'm hopeful Tim will win tomorrow :D You know how this tournament is meant to be a 'non-countable' tournament according to the ATP rankings... Well say he gets a good few ranking points in this tourny will they go towards his ranking or not? :(

it depends on how many point s he has gained in his other non-countable tourneys, the ATP take the five best results from the non countable tournies :ok:

I am sure they will but they do not get as many as a Masters event. But it is a proper ATP tournament so they will get points.

But you're not even British Flame :o roflmao

realistically tim will be aiming at runner up spot to fed in the final as the best possible outcome. that would be worth 175 points in the entry system i believe.

he'll definitely beat mr rochus tomorrow. most of the tennis genes in the rochus family went to his brother oli.