Hamburg Preview

Hamburg is the last big tournament of the clay court season before Roland Garros, Federer his the defending champion here and won 4 of the last 6 edition of this Masters Series. Djokovic will try to take the n°2 spot to Rafael Nadal if he goes to the final. And Rafael Nadal will try to regain his form after his early first round exit in Rome last week.

In the first round there was some revenge in the air as Ivan Ljubicic was playing against Steve Darcis, the Belgian beat Ljubicic in 2 tight sets in Rome first round last week. The match was very long and eventually Ljubicic after 3 hours of play got his revenge by winning 6-7(6), 7-5, 7-6(4).

Another Croat was in action Sunday, Ivo Karlovic came though Mischa Zverev in 2 tie-breaks sets.

German hope, Nicolas Kiefer was in action against the 16th seed Paul-Henri Mathieu, and in front of his public he ousted the Frenchman 6-4 6-4.

Marat Safin, Juan Ignacio Chela and Andreas Seppi will also advance with easy first round win, but they all will have a tougher 2nd round as they respectively play Tomas Berdych, Novak Djokovic and Richard Gasquet.