Montreal – 1R

After five weeks of boredom, another tournament (the Canadian Open) with the best players kicked off. Traditionally, the three best players in the world (Djokovic, Nadal, Federer) skipped all tournaments which were held in the meantime. Two top 10’ers, Robin Soderling and David Ferrer pulled out, also the 2003 champion – Andy Roddick [12] and the Canadian rising star Milos Raonic – suffers an injury since Wimbledon.
In one of the most entertaining first round encounters,”wild card” Ernests Gulbis [55] survived a tough test against the former No. 1, Juan Carlos Ferrero [104]. In the 3rd set, the Latvian saved a mini-m.p. at 3:4 with a forehand winner, then at 4:5 was three times two points away from defeat, at one of those situations served a second serve ace on the line, and broke the Spaniard in the following game with an unconventional overhead-dropshot (!) to seal a 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 triumph with four booming serves. Gulbis was “two points away” also two weeks ago in his first round match in Los Angeles, where he ultimately became a champion. Gulbis’s next opponent Michael Llodra was two points away from loss as well (against M.Youzhny). Llodra, who won two doubles matches faving match points last weekend, according to my stats hasn’t won a m.p.down match in 179 main-level tournaments!
Andrey Golubev [99] is worth mentioning because the Kazakh chases an infamous record of the most defeats in a row, beaten by Thomaz Bellucci, Golubev has extended his losing streak to 18 – four defeats away from breaking Spadea’s record.