As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m doing well in the Tennis Channel’s Racquet Bracket for the French Open. And, incredibly enough, I’m still doing well. I’m 21st out of 3,737 entries. Woo hoo!
Today, though, I find myself in the position of having to root for a pretty big upset to remain near the top of the standings. In one of today’s quarterfinals, Frenchman Gael Monfils is taking on the fifth seed, David Ferrer. Now I had Ferrer making it to the quarterfinals, and I gave serious, serious thought to putting him in the semifinals. But I ultimately went with fourth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko. Davydenko, however, was upset in the third round by Ivan Ljubicic, and Monfils ended up in Davydenko’s spot in the quarters.
Lots of my Racquet Bracket competitors went with Ferrer in the semis, and that makes a lot of sense. His clay-court game has really been firing lately. (For that matter, he’s currently on my ATP Fantasy Game team.) Not that many, of course, put upstart Monfils into the semis. In fact, if Monfils somehow upsets Ferrer, it looks like I’m apt to finish at about 12th place in the standings. If Ferrer wins, as expected, I’m going to get passed by a lot of Ferrer aficionados—and will drop to somewhere near 75th place. No!
So please join me in sending out good vibes to Monfils. Maybe he can work the home-court advantage….
Update: Wow! Monfils won, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.