Going into the French Open, you’d give it a toss-up as to who was playing better after Rafael Nadal: David Ferrer or Fernando Verdasco.  I mean, sure you could point to Roger Federer, but he only had one good tournament, and two “bad” ones (Estoril and Rome).

You wouldn’t have expected David Ferrer to struggle against veteran lefty Jurgen Melzer, but apparently he did.  Without having seen the match, I can’t say how it ended up this way, but one thing Ferrer likes to do is to camp on the ad side and pick on a right hander’s backhand by playing inside out.   But this strategy puts the ball to Melzer’s forehand.  In any case, Ferrer goes out surprisingly in straight sets.

Perhaps nearly as surprising was Roddick’s loss to Gabashvili.  Gabashvili is a qualifier, and one would imagine that Roddick could still beat him, but even if he lost, you’d think it would be tighter, perhaps a tiebreak or a fourth set, instead of the 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 loss.

More surprising than that was Robby Ginepri beating Juan Carlos Ferrero.  At the beginning of the year when many players were in the US prepping for Indian Wells and Miami, some stalwart clay courters head to South America and Mexico to play on clay.  Two players that did well at the time where Juan Carlos Ferrero and David Ferrer.  Ferrer continued to play well once Miami was over and the true clay season started.  Ferrero, on the other hand, didn’t have such a great clay season.  Even so, Ginepri’s year had been pretty much going nowhere.  His victory over Querrey seemed tainted since Querrey had lost interest in playing.  Yet, it seemed to give Ginepri confidence who beat Potito Starace in the second round, then beating Ferrero.  It was all the more impressive because Ginepri won the first two sets, dropped the next two, and won the last.

Bellucci beating Ljubicic was not so much of a surprise.  Bellucci’s results had been better on clay this year.  Nadal beating Hewitt again was also not a surprise, but Hewitt no longer leads in their head-to-head.  They are tied 5 wins apiece.  Verdasco eked out a 5 set win over Kohlschreiber who is tough on clay.

Alexandr Dolgopolov whose new name change (from Oleksandr) just took effect wasn’t able to continue his string of upsets.  After beating Fernando Gonzalez, he lost to hard hitting Nicolas Almagro, in straight sets.

Novak Djokovic continues a solid run with the expected victory over Victor Hanescu of Romania in four sets.

Tomorrow, Federer plays his first tough challenge, countryman Stanislas Wawrinka.  Fed had an easy victory over Wawrinka in Madrid.  One imagines the match should be closer, but still be a comfortable Fed victory.  Youzhny plays Tsonga in what promises to be a tough match.

Cilic plays Soderling in perhaps the toughest of the fourth round matches, the winner to take on the winner of Federer-Wawrinka.  Murray takes on Berdych who easily dispatches of John Isner.