Marseille Tennis

For todays tennis posts im going to do a separate post for each tournament in order to talk sufficiently about each tournament and the matches that are taking place. So starting in Marseille where the two final games of today will take place tonight starting at 6.30 pm local time. Those games feature 3rd and 7th seeds Janko Tipsarevic and Ivan Ljubicic who both open their accounts. '05 finalist Ljubicic takes on Slovak Karol Beck who he defeated a few weeks ago in Zagreb. Ljubicic, a former world number 3, has had a poor start to the season and that win over Beck is the only win he has to his name this year with 4 losses. That record is made worse by the fact he has yet to play a top 100 player and a loss in this one will leave question marks over Bosnian-born Croatians ability to continue to compete at the top of the game. This match should be competitive with Ljubicic continuing his dominance over Beck. Ljubicic leads the head to head 3-1 although 3 of those meetings were back in '04 and '05 with Beck's solitary win coming in their first meeting. With a 1-4 record this year Beck could do with a win also but i dont see him getting it here. World number 9 and in form Janko Tipsarevic takes on rising Belgian star David Goffin for the second time this year having dispatched the 21 year old in 3 sets in Chennai en route to the final. Goffin, who has had impressive wins over Xavier Malisse and Andreas Beck already this year, will be looking to earn his biggest win to date but will have his work cut out against Tipsarevic who himself is at a career high rank and is hoping to cement his place among the games current elite this year. World number 164 Goffin will relish the challenge of playing a top ten player and after pushing the Serb to 3 sets in January will be hoping to go one step further this time. The Belgian's losses this year have all come against players of similar rank while his best performances and wins have come against players in the top 100. I think this game comes slightly too soon for Goffin and although he should again produce a string performance but ultimately Tipsarevic will be too strong for the Belgian. Bookmakers have Ljubicic and Tipsarevic as favourites although they have little between Ljubicic and Beck with Ljubicic a 1/2 favourite and beck as little as 6/4 in some cases. I'd fancy Ljubicic and Tipsarevic to win although there are dangers in backing Ljubicic with his poor form.