Last year's Hamburg finalist Jurgen Melzer is in action against Daniel Gimeno-Traver.
It's notoriously hard to predict the events of July with most of the world's top 30 just going through the motions ahead of the more important stuff to come next month. This week's German Tennis Championships is no exception. There's plenty of points at stake but most of the top seeds in Hamburg are struggling for form at the moment and we could well see another surprise champion like Andrey Golubev last year.
Melzer enjoyed a good run at Hamburg in 2010, losing to Golubev in the final. The Austrian was loving the red stuff this time last year having just made his maiden Grand Slam semi-final but twelve months ago things could not be more different.
Still ranked just outside the top ten, Melzer is in no danger of cracking it any time soon and last week he was comprehensively out-hustled by Columbian journeyman Santiago Giraldo in the opening round.
Melzer seems far happier on the doubles court at the moment where he's been racking up the titles with Philipp Petzschner. They picked up their second of the year in Stuttgart last week but crashed out early in Hamburg. The defeat may help Melzer focus on the singles draw this week.
Melzer leads Gimeno-Traver 2-1 on the head-to-head but he lost in straight sets to the Spaniard at the Madrid Masters earlier this year. However we reckon the Austrian will stop the rot this week and take his revenge.
