Preview: Open 13

City: Marseille, France
Surface: Indoor Hard
Championship Points: 250
2008 Singles Champion: Andy Murray
2008 Doubles Champions: Damm/Vizner


Open 13

Defending champion, Andy Murray pulled out of the tournament due to an ankle injury. This leaves Novak Djokovic, the top seed and eleven other French players to battle it out. Tomas Berdych, Marat Safin and Feliciano Lopez round out the other top seeds.

Gilles Simon, the top-ranked Frenchmen and the 2007 champion, is seated number two. He draws Grigor Dimitrov in the first round. The young Bulgarian gave Rafael Nadal some trouble in Rotterdam. If Simon beats Dimitrov, he could eventually meet Gasquet in the quarterfinals. Gasquet currently leads their head-to-head 5-0.

On the other side of the draw, Djokovic will have an easier draw but could meet Safin in the quarterfinals. He may find himself in trouble if Safin is on the top of his game, like last year at Wimbledon. Should Djokovic make it to the semifinals, he could possibly meet Frenchmen, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tsonga leads their head-to-head 3-1 and has won their last three meetings.

Tournament Draw
Singles / Doubles

Monday's Matches:
Singles Round of 32:
5 Tomas Berdych (CZE) vs. Mikhail Youzhny (RUS)
8 Feliciano Lopez (ESP) vs. Ivan Ljubicic (CRO)
Teimuraz Gabashvili (RUS) vs. Dmitry Tursunov (RUS)
Jan Hernych (CZE) vs. Kristof Vliegen (BEL)

Doubles Round of 16:
2 M. Damm (CZE) /R. Lindstedt (SWE) def. A. Clement (FRA) /M. Llodra (FRA)
W. Moodie (RSA) /D. Norman (BEL) vs.J. Brunstrom (SWE) /J. J. Rojer (NED)

Monday's Order of Play