Berdych Takes Revenge Over Buatista Agut in Bangkok, Mannarino Upsets Almagro in Kuala Lumpur

It was nice to see so many people visiting my new tennis blog and I am back for installment #2. In the poll I posted most people voted for Berdych to win the title and he had a winning start today when he beat Baustista Agut 6-3, 6-3, after he lost to the Spaniard in the quarter finals of Chennai earlier this year. Berdych is clearly the better player and I'm not sure how he managed to lose that match. It was nice revenge however and the head-to-head is now all squared at 1-1. Berdych will next face the winner of 8th seeded Rosol and Lu.

Tomic ended up beating Karlovic after Karlovic withdrew in the 3rd set due to a back injury. Tomic was a break up at 4-2 when Karlovic pulled out. Tomic now plays Simon which could be a very interesting contest. They have similar styles in the sense that neither hits with a lot of power, but rather tries to outsmart the other player with subtle variety and patience. Simon of course comes off that title in Metz and Tomic is still trying to prove himself. There is a serious lack of youngsters in the top 100 and Tomic is one of the most promising, yet he is struggling to get any consistency going.

In Kuala Lumpur the #1 seed Ferrer also had a routine win as you would expect over Italian qualifier Viola. The big news was that Mannarino upset 3rd seeded Almagro 6-4, 6-3, after Mannarino beat Brands 6-3, 6-4 in the first round. Mannarino had a good US Open run where he upset Querrey in the 2nd round and lost to Federer in the 3rd round, and he now followed it up by beating the world #17. He will play against the winner of another Frenchman Benneteau and Andujar for a place in the semis. The two remaining matches in the bottom half should be interesting.

That is Tursonov vs Carreno Busta and Baghdatis vs Wawrinka. Carreno Busta is a 22-year old youngster who is showing a lot of promise. He has shot up the rankings from #654 at the start of the year to his current ranking of #66. Strangely enough he is not someone people seem to talk about a lot because I don't hear of him much, but the Spaniard looks like a future star and I can see him beat Tursunov here. As for Baghdatis he had a good win at the US Open against Anderson as well and then lost to Wawrinka in the 3rd round in 4 sets.

He also had a good win in the 1st round against Berloq so he can definitely push Wawrinka. Still I have to go for a Wawrinka win. It should be one of the better matches tomorrow though.

All the results from today