Gasquet Claims Tuesday Night Hot Shot Honours Paris 2011

Gasquet Video Ranking: 4 / 5

GREAT BATTLE AHEAD

It is a fight between Juan Martin Del Potro, the lanky Argentine, who is quite well weaponed along with a devastating forehand and probing serve, whereas his opponent Richard Gasquet has awe-inspiring agility and very reliable serve – so be ready to cherish a good battle between these 2 on Friday in a quarter-final game of the 2012 season Marseille ATP Open, an ATP World Tour 250 championship, being played in Marseille, France.

At present, ranked at number ten in the world, Juan Martin Del Potro ended runner-up in Rotterdam tennis championship, where he lost to the Swiss master Roger Federer in the final match. Juan Martin had his contribution of injuries following his maiden Grand Slam win in the year 2009 in US Open, but at present it appears that the Argentine tennis player has took on the entire spoilt things quite well.

Del Potro is looking for his 10th career title on tour as well as has a nice 10 – 3 win – loss record on tour in this season. The Argentine player can anticipate a tough battle against Richard Gasquet and will have to engage in his top tennis to secure a win here. Seeded 4th in this championship, Del Potro equalized the transactions at 6 – 7 (6 – 8), 6 – 4 in his match, when Nikolay Davydenko retired because of a foot injury.

Del Potro, in the head to head, has a thin lead over the French tennis player with 2 – 1. Previously, they confronted back in the year 2008 in the Tokyo championship, where Del Potro beat up Richard Gasquet in 3 laborious sets. We can anticipate some kind of tennis on Friday, since both competitors are looking in devastating from at this point of time.

HQ – Gael Monfils v Richard Gasquet – ATP 250 Metz 2009 – SF

Gasquet Online video Ranking: 4 / five

NOT TO BE

After a fantastic win against Janko Tipsarevic in the third round, Richard Gasquet must have entered his encounter with fifth seed Ferrer with confidence high, but it wasn’t to be for the aspiring Frenchman.

Gasquet was playing some of the best tennis of his career in the Tipsarevic match, with just 8 unforced errors all game, compared to his 33 winners. And his groundstrokes were so good that he actually won 74% of his second serve points – actually 3% higher than his win percentage on first serve. Either way, he dominated the first two sets, and his dejected Serbian opponent had virtually given up by the time the third set appeared.

With this stunning performance under his belt, you would be forgiven for thinking he could at least take a set or two off the hard-working Ferrer in his fourth round tie. Instead, he found most of the groundstrokes that would be giving Tipsarevic a problem being scrambled back by the Spaniard, who rarely gives up on anything. Gasquet even managed to up his first serve percentage, getting a very respectable 71% in, but still only winning half the points on either of his serves. In contrast, Ferrer was keeping the pressure on when serving to his opponent, winning 83% of his first serve points, and converting 7 out of 9 break points. The match finished 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 to Ferrer, and it shows just how good his battling approach is against opponents whose confidence isn’t unshakeable – which means virtually everyone below him in the rankings.

Gasquet will be pleased he caused the upset against 10^th seed Tipsarevic to get to the stage he did though, and if he can play the way he did in that match on a regular basis, he will quickly be reclaiming his spot in the top ten.

Richard Gasquet – slow motion (1)

Gasquet Video clip Ranking: 5 / five

Gasquet Ready for the Hopman Challenge

French tennis player Richard Gasquet has landed in Australia ahead of the Hyundai Hopman Cup tie against China where he will partner Marion Bartoli as part of the second seeded French team. The world number 19 immediately went to court to have a hit-up in Perth in order to get acquainted with the conditions. Gasquet had an hour long session with local player and world number 86 Matt Ebden and it was a good session for both the players as they are both looking for practice before the start of the summer.

The Frenchman reached a career high ranking of number 7 after going on a brilliant run in 2007 during which he won the hard court title in Mumbai, India and reached the semi finals and quarter finals stages of Wimbledon and the Australian Open respectively. But frequent injuries meant that he could not keep up the momentum that he had and finished the 2009 season at a lowly 52^nd place. But since then, Richard Gasquet has come back to the court a lot fitter, stronger and wiser and he believes that he is good condition to earn the first ever Hopman Cup win for his country along with Marion Bartoli.

Currently ranked 19^th in the world, the 25 year old says that he still has age on his side and that is always a good thing in tennis these days because the younger players are extremely fit and one has to compete with them at every level.

Although Richard Gasquet is not in the top 10 at the moment, he believes that a few good results will get him there and he is hoping that he can finish the year off with at least one major title to his name and a decent position in the ATP rankings.