ATP MARSEILLE
Surface: Indoor Hard
http://www.open13.fr/

A strong field in France this week, headlined by the top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. American Mardy Fish is the 2nd seed and Janko Tipsarevic and Juan Martin Del Potro round out the top four seeds. The defending champion is Robin Soderling who is still out due to illness. A French player has won four of the last six titles here.

Tsonga's quarter is set up pretty nicely for Tsonga to get to the semis. He's got a bye to open and then gets either Mahut or Clement. Two pretty solid players will hold down the bottom part of this quarter with Jarkko Nieminen and Andreas Seppi. Nieminen has to get past Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin, but Nieminen is very strong on this surface and should survive if fatigue doesn't get him from last week. Seppi should oust Cipolla first up. If Nieminen can navigate through to the quarterfinals, he would provide a stern test for Tsonga. Tsonga won this event in 2009, but has been bumped in the semifinals and quarterfinals the last two times. Keep an eye on who matches up against him in the quarters.

Del Potro's quarter is going to be tricky. Even without fatigue from Rotterdam, Del Potro was going to have a tough time surviving this quarter. Davydenko could be his his first opponent after an opening round bye. Davydenko got some much needed confidence in Rotterdam and nearly knocked out Roger Federer. The key here is whether or not Davydenko is fully healthy. He looked like he tweaked a knee or leg issue against Federer, but kept fighting until the end of a hard fought three set loss. If he's close to 100 percent, he's going to give Del Potro some problems and definitely could end Del Potro's session early. Gasquet is the other seed in this quarter. He has not done well here with a 4-5 mark and has only made it as far as the quarters once. He has Soeda up first and then Kunitsyn or a qualifier. It's an easy path, but nothing says Gasquet is going to do much here.

Tipsarevic's quarter is set up nicely for the Serb. A bye and then Mannarino or a qualifier. The top part of the quarter has Ivan Ljubicic and wildcard Paul Henri Mathieu. Ljubicic has been out of form for most of the season and Mathieu is still an inconsistent player as he tries to re-establish himself. There really is no reason to think Tipsarevic shouldn't run roughshod through this quarter. Tipsarevic is 20-6 on this surface in the past year with two titles and another finals appearance. He looked solid in Davis Cup play on a similar surface, so I think he'll be a threat to win this week.
 
Fish is back on tour for the first time since Team USA's marvelous Davis Cup upset over Switzerland. He will have a bye in the first round and then could see Matthias Bachinger or a qualifier. The other portion of his quarter has Alexandr Dolgopolov and home-standing Frenchman, Michael Llodra. This is going to be an interesting week for Fish. He has not played well on indoor courts in the last year, dropping nine of his last eleven matches on the surface. His best runs on this surface came in the US swing in San Jose and Memphis, so it's a bit curious to see him playing this tournament instead of Memphis. The plus for Fish is that Dolgpolov looked terrible last week and this isn't a great surface for him either. The minus could be that Llodra is stuck in his draw. Llodra has a knack for playing well at these France-based indoor tournaments. He made the final twice here, winning it all once and made the quarters last year. Llodra is a definite dark horse to watch.

Semifinalists: Tsonga, Davydenko, Tipsarevic, Llodra
Final: Tsonga over Llodra
Upset Watch: Rosol over Dolgopolov & Serra over Ljubicic
Player to Watch: Michael Llodra