[From la Tercera, by Fernando González]
[Translation by the webmaster]
“Here, all the opponents are difficult”
Since today (yesterday) that I’m in Shanghai and the tournament is starting to become lively, because most of the players are in China.
It’s a special championships and one feels that since the arrival in the city, when more than 6 persons arrive to pick me up at the airport and transfer me in a luxury hotel and where in the stadium, there’s a room exclusively for each player, which is the case in a very few parts of the world. One sure thing, it’s a great honor to be here.
Yesterday, I did my first training and the feeling I had was very good. I practriced with (Novak) Djokovic and the court was very good, because we can play, the same surface of the tournaments we played in Europe and less fast than 2005 when I played.
And, then, I could know about my rivals for the first stage of the tournament which will start on sunday (11 hours later than in Chile)
The chance puts me in the red group, with Roger Federer (1), Nikolay Davydenko (4) and Andy Roddick (5). As we know, the rules say that the two first of each group go to the semi finals, it won’t be easy to advance.
At the first sight, it will be a group much more close than the other, where Rafael Nadal (2), Novak Djokovic (3), David Ferrer (6) and Richard Gasquet (8) are and they will start on sunday. The truth is that in any zone I would have been, it would have been difficult. Here, are the best players in the world so it’s not possible to speak of more difficult or easier draw.
I have to start to talk about Federer, who will be my first opponent on monday. It has been two years that he won everything and nobody can win. And, in the last three weeks, he got defeats against the same player : David Nalbandian, who defeated him in Madrid and Paris-Bercy.
It’s rare when something happens to the best player in the world, but, it gives us motivation that it’s possible to defeat him.
As always, it will be entertaining to face him and each time I play against him, my goal is to try to beat him, no matter how hard I know the difficult thing that it is. I have never defeated him, but the motivation increases when I’m in front of him.
Concerning Davydenko, it’s a player very polyvalent, regular on both sides and who gives a great rythm in the game from the bottom of the court. But he got some unexpected defeats (Marin Cilic in St Petersburg and Marcos Baghdatis in Paris-Bercy) and got several physical problems, it’s the reason why he didn’t play in Madrid three weeks ago.
Roddick, finally, appeared yesterday in Shanghai, after speculations about his withdrawal of the tournament due to physical problems. It will be of course difficult to face him. His great strengh is the serve and the rest is normal.
I didn’t play much lately, which could be an advantage.
