Dethroned Blanco in doubt for Clowich assault
French Open champion
Daniel Páez Blanco is battling an ankle injury to be fit for the first tournament on CWLand soil as the
Clowich Masters gets underway this week in Clowich. In a cruel double blow, Blanco lost his number one ranking and badly rolled his ankle in his quarterfinal loss to
Rasmus Olesen, and is in danger of falling further behind American
Jason Hall who will this week be named world No. 1 regardless of the result of the final in Montréal taking place this evening. Should Blanco play, he faces a tough draw to make up ground on Hall with the likes of eighth seed
József Boros and ninth seed
Illya Altman in his section.
2R - Davis Kennedy/Qualifier
3R - Henry Charles/Martti Korpinen (predicted)
QF - József Boros/Illya Altman (predicted)
SF - Radek Špidlá/Juan Moreno (predicted)
F - Jason Hall/Radivoj Daneu (predicted)
CWLanders
Martti Korpinen - A generous draw for the wildcard who will hope to get one of the easier qualifiers (Moss or Ortiz would be grand) to get a spot in the second round. There either Boyd or Charles await, and that should be the end of him.
Heath Davis - Much worse draw for Davis than Harmel was in Montréal as Champion is in good touch and should be too good. If he can get past Champion (who is, in all reality, very unpredictable), a rematch with Radek Špidlá awaits.
Jefferson Drake - Doubles rival Ross Onwye returns from injury in the first round and shouldn't trouble Drake too much, and he has a pretty nice run through to the third round where Špidlá likely awaits (again). He tested him last time before falling in straight sets, so a win isn't out of the realms of probability. From there it gets easier, too.
Roy Daniels - First match back from injury, and he'll be happy that he's playing doubles, too. Won't get past Brdar.
Randy Smeltz - Could make the quarters if everything goes his way, but likely won't. A pretty tough draw with no easy matches, but it could be worse. Bradley is solid but never spectacular, and Moreno is in awful form. Despite that, the Argentine should bounce back in the second.
Jamee Hancianu - An identical draw to Montréal as he, again, has a qualifier first up and Darcy Cowan in the second. Can he get back at the Wimbledon champion? Probably not if his loss from last week is anything to go by.
Sven Oxenstierna - Worse draw than Montréal with the always unpredictable Danijel Micic in the second round. Gets worse, too, with Murdoch and Hall standing between him and the semifinals. Needs to get a wriggle on, though, because if things don't go his way he could lose a top eight seeding for the CW Open.
Jojo Mustard - Will be thanking the tennis gods for handing him a qualifier to try and find form against, but someone like Björn Donaldson or Paolo Mandonna would be the worst case scenario for him. Murdoch isn't great outside of Grand Slams, so he could produce a surprise run to the third round in front of a home crowd.
