Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
The New Haven Tennis men’s event hits the last eight stage today, with favourite Marcos Baghdatis still in the hunt for the title.
All four quarter-finals can be seen via Betfair’s live stream – just create an account with Betfair, settle back and watch the action for free! Weather permitting of course..
Thiemo de Bakker (8/15 with Boylesports) v Evgeny Korolev (6/4 with VC Bet)
Denis Istomin (2/5 with Boylesports) v Teymuraz Gabashvilli (2/1 with Betfred)
Viktor Troicki (8/11 with Betfred) v Radek Stepanek (11/9 with BWin)
Marcos Baghdatis v Sergey Stahkovsky or Tommy Robredo…
The action starts with Thiemo De Bakker (pictured) against Evgeny Korolev. Dutchman De Bakker is making name for himself, especially on hard courts, which see to be his preferred surface, and he scored a good win over Florian Mayer in the last round. Korolev has had a good run for someone only just adjusting to the surface, but its been a kind draw and De Bakker should end his run. He’s the bet of the day at 8/15 with Boylesports!
Denis Istomin has also started to find his feet on the hard courts just in time for the US Open, slugging it out with Lucas Lacko to make this stage. Gabashvilli has had a poor summer until this week, where he got lucky as Xavier Malisse retired and then edged past clay courter Andrey Golubev, but Istomin’s big serve ought to be enough to take him through to the last four. Istomin is 2/5 with Boylesports
The third match is the toughest to call as Viktor Troicki meets Radek Stepanek. Stepanek is really coming back to himself with this good run, edging past Victor Hanescu in a tight match yesterday. Troicki has also shown steady hard court form. Go for the Serb Troicki to win in three sets, in what will be a close contest. It’s a good bet at 3/1 with Betfred
We’ll have more on the last quarter-final when the details are known.