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Main SIngles Draw

Looking at the draw, i cant see anything but a Haas/Blake final.

Main SIngles Draw

OK, I know it is Round Robin but doesn't it look quite strange? There aren't enough players it seems? Scuse me if it is obviosu too but what does "ME" stand for? :blink:

Also, I haven't read up much in terms of this but will points for Round Robin tournaments be the same? They will have to be won't they and how will they be awarded?

There is a knockout round first Trisco, and the winners from that round fill in the blank spaces (or MEs!!!but im not sure what it stands for) in the round Robin, so its like the higher ranked players get a bye straight to the round robin phase

OK, Benjamin Becker is through to the semifinals. I like Ben a lot, and would like to see him do better --- he should break the top 50 soon (where will he be after this week?), and I really do think he has the game to make the top 30 at least. So it's good to see him in his second SF (I saw him live in his first one in Tokyo :) ).

It's not Roger this time, but James Blake, who will be his opponent, could be quite a tricky proposition himself. He's been playing really well recently, and he looks pretty much on track to defend his title. I think it should be a good match though; both are big, clean hitters.

On the other side of the draw, it's Malisse against against Spadea (who took out Tommy Haas).

I'll point out that Malisse came through the RR stage because he took Schuettler to three sets, while every other match was in two sets (and each man in the group won exactly one of his two matches). It's interesting to note that Falla actually won a higher percentage of games than Malisse though :wacko:

God, I can't stand that awful RR format, particularly with groups of three players. It seems *so* pointless. :angry:

Malisse is on a bit of a roll right now. Winning Chennai, singles and doubles, now this. He took a set off Fed too in Toronto last year in the quarters and it was a very clsoe match. I think this may be his year!

Not so sure about Malisse. I'm not a real fan of his tennis --- I don't think he's got what it takes to string it together and really make a push for the top of the rankings. He can get past Spadea, but against Blake in the final, I really can't see him go through. He's at 31 in the world now, and I'd be surprised if he makes it much higher, tbh.

Sounds like Ben actually had some chances against Blake (four break points overall, and even a set point in the second set tie break), but still went down in two. In any case, it'll have been a good experience, I reckon.

It seems, Malisse always does well in Delray Beach. According to the ATP, this is the fifth time he'll have been in the final. It seems that more than 10% of his ATP career victories came there! :yikes:

Malisse actually does have the potential to be in the top 10 - it was obvious in Chennai.

He has a very complete game...Good serve, powerful strokes, good volleying...

...But his temper can decide everything.

So what happened with the final? I was following the score earlier, but it seems to have stopped at 7-5 3-3. Was it weather delayed or did someone retire? :shrug:

OK. Looked it up. It was, indeed, a rain delay.

Oh dear. Leading by one set before the rain delay, James Blake managed to lose the match against Malisse. Well done to him, you've got to say. He obviously dealt better with the break. I'm not such a big fan of Malisse, and still not really convinced that he can climb much higher than he already has, but we'll see ...

James blake, what a waster. Nadal should ashamed of himself for not steamrolling the freak. And this id is in the top ten. Flaming heck, borg and sampras must be so pissed of with thier parents. Why couldnt they have been born a decade later, then you will seen the real meaning of GOAT.

Good god, chairman, what's with all this negative attitude? Can't you for once give a player credit for winning? Malisse has always had a good run at Delray Beach, considering he's won about 10% of his total career matches there, so it's obviously pretty much his perfect tournament. And it's not as though he is a bad player.

Also, if you actually read the match report, you would have seen that the conditions were less than optimal. It was apparently very windy, and Malisse just adapted better to these conditions on the day.

And it's not as if Sampras didn't lose to lower-ranked players once in a while. Indeed, in 1997 he was beaten, among others, by legendary Bohdan Ulihrach, ranked 43, in Indian Wells. Also guess how many top 10 players Sampras had to face to win Wimbledon that year? Exactly zero. (He did have to beat Becker, but even you will have to admit that he was well past his prime by then.) So much for your 'lions' theory then. Maybe it would have helped if you had actually *watched* tennis in those days.

Chairman:

1) You didn't see this Blake Malisse match

2) You've never seen Malisse play

3) You didn't see Sampras play

4) You didn't see Borg play

Hmmm, how did I know you were gonna come up with some dribble to do with my age? I think its time to make some real life friends.

Listen, chairman, it's got nothing to do with your age. You don't need to have watched Sampras at the time to be entitled to an opinion. However, it would befit you well to

a) not pretend that things are otherwise (i.e. that you know exactly what tennis was like during the Sampras era), and

B) to at least use the resources you have at your disposal (e.g. the ATP website with records of past players' records) to check your facts.

A top 10 player losing to a player ranked around 30 in the world has never been such an unusual occurrence in tennis. And in any case, Malisse is a good player --- I reckon most of the guys in the top 30 these days have at least some chance of beating a top 10 player, particularly if an equalizer is present, such as the wind in the Blake-Malisse match.