ATP Week Ahead: Eastbourne, ‘Den Bosch

Eastbourne

Random Queens-related comment: I saw Tursunov a couple of days after he’d lost, and he was being a real sweetie about posing for photos and so on for fans. Kudos. Anyway …

Draw here.

Top seeds: Nicolas Almagro, Feliciano Lopez, Gilles Simon, Julien Benneteau, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Horacio Zeballos, Alexander Dolgopolov, Michael Llodra

A bit lightweight compared to the women’s draw, and very heavy on the clay-courters. Still, Gilles is back – yay! – and it will be interesting to see whether Lopez and Llodra can carry across their good Queens form.

‘Den Bosch

Draw here.

Top seeds: Ivan Ljubicic, Marcos Baghdatis, Tommy Robredo, Victor Troicki, Philipp Petzchner, Thiemo de Bakker, Janko Tipsarevic, Arnaud Clement

Sunday’s results

Singles – First Round
S Greul (GER) d [WC] R Haase (NED) 75 76(5)
S Giraldo (COL) d M Chiudinelli (SUI) 62 75
A Falla (COL) d F Serra (FRA) 64 64
P Luczak (AUS) d M Russell (USA) 76(6) 76(3)

Eastbourne & Ordina Open: Titlists

Kind of hard to imagine any of these four (apart from Wozniacki) making a real run at Wimbledon. But hey, splendour in the grass is not to be sneezed at.

Caroline Wozniacki beat Virginie Razzano 76(5) 75 in a really tight straight sets final. It was interesting as Virginie was definitely the better player for large stretches of the match and in fact ended with more winners than UFEs, Caroline having the reverse. Still, Wozniacki did what she is getting really good at; hanging in there and winning for her fifth WTA title and the first on grass.

Wonder if she can emulate last year’s winner Radwanska and make it to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon?

Cute moment in the ceremony when Razzano forgot her name:

Ah, those crazy Frenchwomen. They make things fun,

On the men’s side, Tursunov topped Frank “Rhythm is a” Dancevic 63 76(5) for his first title of the year.

In Den Bosch, Tanasugarn’s bewildering relationship with the Ordina Open continued as she beat Wickmayer 63 75, and German qualifier Benjamin Becker disappointed the home crowd by knocking out the wildcard Sluiter, 75 63 (spooky!) for his first title.

Becker has a Dali face, that’s what I learned today.

Well done everyone and so forth. Now get your asses to Wimbledon, please. Word has it there’s an opening.