Gulbis is a person...

Some really shocking results in this tourney thus far.... I wouldn't back any chalk in this tourney.

Who would have thought that Andjuar and Berlocq would both win

I would also love to see Roddick lose today since they all dropping like flys not making it out of the first round it seems.

Some of it is the ATP slowing down some of these tourney courts. The day of the lightning fast courts is gone really. Look at Wimby... its super slow compared to 1988.

ATP did this to try and level the playing field. And to be honest...its working pretty well.

Clay court guys are able to get more serves in play and its harder for the hard court guys to hit through the court. Once upon a time you'd look at a match like Gulbis vs. Berlocq and it would be free money... with these slower courts there is no more free money...playing these high chalk lines is a very dangerous proposition.

Andjuar over Verdy

Granollers over Wawa

Berlocq over Gulbis

Interesting tourney thus far

Sniff...

Sniff....

Sniff.......Smell that? Smells like BULLSHIT.

Sparty,

Where can I find info on how fast the courts are?

Fed loses all the time outside of the majors

Sparty444

An excellent analysis!

You really know your tennis!

Yes, a lot of inexperienced punters (like myself) have ended up losing quite a bit of money playing favourites when infact, even challenger level, clay court players stand a fair chance on the new, slower ATP courts.

A Czech mate of mine who once played the ATP tour (at one time he was ranked in the Top 200), told me that on the slower surfaces a hard-court specialist's strength's are somewhat neutralised and baseline sluggers can hang in there and cause an upset or two. As I type this Andy Roddick has just fallen

However, you have to admit that this tournament has had more than its fair share of upsets.

I think the other reeason for everybody outside the Top 3 losing to just anybody is that their aren't any dominant players anymore. Gone are the days of McEnroe, Conners, Lendl, Sampras when they would win almost everything there was to win minor or major.

The WTA is even worse. Venus Williams was the only one I felt who could be a dominant force as her service game was on a different level. Now you have rubbish servers like Na Li, Sharpova et al who are insidfe the Top 10. I mean how low does it get?

Fed doesnt lose to stiffs in the non majors, though.  He loses later on to the good players.  The other good players, though, regularly lose to the stiffs in the non-majors.

Yes, this tournament had had more than it's fair share of upsets than normal though, especially for a non-major that has decent prize $.  5 guys who were -700 or worse have already been knocked off.  How anyone can lay -600 on a bum like Gulbis is just asking for it.  I could see it doing it with a top 10 player but not a borderline top 30 player.  From my experience you are nuts to lay anything worse than -600 in a non major with ANYONE not named Fed, Nadal, Djokovic.  These guys are jockeying for top 3 world ranking and dont wanna give ground.  For the other guys outside the top 3 these tournaments dont mean a hill of sh*t to them.