Andreas Seppi takes on former nemesis Igor Andreev in the second round of ATP Bucharest.
Seppi makes his living out of these ATP 250 events and the Italian will be enjoying his final taste of the clay for 2011 before the season moves exclusively indoors. He's seeded seventh this week and began with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 win over the in-form Eric Prodon.
Seppi will feel he's in with a chance here as the draw really is wide open. He's in the same quarter as top seed Juan Ignacio Chela but the Argentine has struggled in the smaller events, maybe lacking motivation and fourth seed Pablo Andujar (in the same half) remains inconsistent.
Andreev received a call-up to the Russian Davis Cup side at the weekend, losing to Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci in straight sets. Fortunately his country managed to sneak a 3-2 win but Andreev then had a pretty rapid surface change from a fast indoor hard court to clay and it showed in his opening match. He only just survived against German qualifier Peter Torebko, winning 5-7, 6-4, 7-5.
Andreev leads 6-2 on the head-to-head between these two but four of those wins came between 2004 and 2006 when he was regularly ranked in the top 30. More recently it's been far more even and Seppi actually won their last encounter 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 in last year's Genova Challenger.
Prediction: Seppi in three.
