Vliegen in first round of Queen’s

Ernests is launching his 2008 grass season campaign at the Artois Championships in Queen’s Club, London. His quarterfinal loss in Roland Garros provided mixed blessings as it bought him several extra days to acclimatise himself to the conditions at Queen’s. The tournament will begin this Monday and acts as a warm-up event for Wimbledon, which runs for a fortnight starting from June 23rd.

Last year Ernests arrived at Queen’s, never having played a match on grass, and lost to Robert Kendrick of the USA in two tiebreak sets. He gained more match practice by signing up for the doubles with Ivan Ljubicic, and they subsequently reached the semifinals of the Ordina Open.

This year, Ernests returns with the distinction of being a Roland Garros quarterfinalist, but with only one set won on grass in 2007 (against Baghdatis in the first round of Wimbledon). With his thundering serve and big-hitting style, Ernests’ game is expected to translate well to grass if he manages to make the adjustment from clay and maintains his recent form.

The draw handed him an opener against Kristof Vliegen of Belgium, whom he beat in the finals of the Mons Challenger last year. Vliegen took a fortnight off after retiring against Jose Acasuso in the first round of the Hamburg Masters, and this is his second tournament after losing in the first round of Roland Garros. In 2006, the Belgian used to be ranked as high as #30 in the world and also made the semifinals of the Halle tournament that year. As the higher-ranked of the two, Ernests will be the favourite in this match, but could not afford to be over-confident.

If Ernests progresses into the second round, he will face the winner between Arnaud Clément and the 12th-seeded Andreas Seppi. Both of these potential opponents defeated Ernests in their previous encounters: Clément in the first round of Casablanca last year, and Seppi in Pörtschach three weeks ago. Clément is also the reigning Wimbledon champion – albeit in the doubles.

Should Ernests make it past the second round, he will set up a potential third-round encounter with the tempestuous Scot, Andy Murray, who has to make his way through either Sebastian Grosjean or a qualifier. Murray plays an unusual type of cerebral tennis which tends to push him into long stretches of passiveness – a clear contrast of Ernests’ style of going for winners at every possible opportunity. Should they both progress this far, this match will almost certainly be played on Centre Court – and the British public in particular will await whether yet another 1988-born player will take out their only real hope at singles glory, as Marin Čilić did to Tim Henman last year.

~ by Zahirah on June 8, 2008.