It is time to predict who’s up for the titles. In Tokyo we have 6 rounds for unseeded players and Bye’s for those seeded. It has to be said that when Michael Russel is seeded we are not in a very prestigous looking tournament, but nevertheless Tokyo had Federer on their board last year. If Ferrer can continue the play he showed us in New York, he can go all the way here too. However, Tokyo might turn out to be very hard to call. We have Berdych, Gasquet, Hewitt, Tursunov…. and the list goes on of potential title challengers. I think these four have a real chance of taking it. Berdych is always a danger, and is on his way back to the form he showed last year. Gasquet just won his first hard court tournament in India. Hewitt is always a title contender, this time no exception. Tursunov must try to ride a consistency wave to win titles, but he just captured the Bangkok title. Who would have thought that?
Can Ferrer win this one as top seed?
In France we have almost an equally close tournament. Top seed is Robredo and names like Canas, Murray, Mathieu, Kohlschreiber and Andreev appear on the list. Should also point to players like Grosjean, Mahut, Santoro, Wawrinka, Tsonga and Tipsarevic who all are in the underachiever category ranking-wise. I think Wawrinka and Grosjean can take the title withouth the need to be seeded. Santoro is always a question mark. Mahut and Tsonga… well personally I’m just waiting for a breakthrough from both these guys. Tipsarevic is also filled with potential. My prediction is that Robredo doesn’t win it, but I cannot call this one. There’s at least 12 players I would pick for the title. If I had to pick, I would go for either Wawrinka or:
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