CAMELOT FANTASIES

Agreed general hercules, and the upsets continue with a vengeance in the bottom half of the draw with Novak as the chief beneficiary in his QF where a guaranteed unseeded player will be on one side of the net.

Bet on the clay court retrieving type players or players that love a high bounce - balls are bouncing high on the IW "blue clay" as usual in the desert sun.

Attacking players are having to risk too much and are spraying unforced errors left, right, into the net and over the baseline in an effort to win a point instead of playing not to lose a point.  Only chance for these kind of players is if an unlikely desert cold front storm arrives that drops the temps like it did a couple of years ago.

#6 Del Potro withdrew.
Bautista-Agut beat #4 Berdych
Benneteau beat #9 Tsonga
Thiem beat #21 Gilles Simon
Lu beat #22 Kohlschreiber
Kukushkin beat #25 Pospisil
Nieminen beat #26 F. Mayer
Gonzalez beat #31 Dodig

So who is left in the Djokovic half of the draw?

#8 Gasquet now heads the 3rd quarter (formerly #4 Berdych's), and he will play #30 Verdasco next.  I wouldn't count Verdasco out.

The winner of that match will play the winner of unseeded Lu and #12 John Isner.   Isner should take that, he loves the high bounce into his 6'9" frame, and his kick second serve bites and takes off like a rocket on the gritty court.

In the other 1/8,  #15 Dimitrov and #20 Gulbis will face off and the winner of that match will play one of the unseeded players, Nieminen or Bautista-Agut.

In Djokovic's quarter, the top 1/8 will showcase 4 unseeded players.  Lopez vs Kukuskin and Thiem vs. Benneteau.
Djokovic's 1/8th will have #16 Robredo vs. the in-form #24 Cilic and the winner will play the winner of unseeded Gonzalez vs. Djokovic.

I would like to see Isner vs Dimitrov in the 3rd QF.
Djokovic's 4th round vs Robredo or Cilic will likely be his toughest match of the tournament till the semifinals.

Much like at the AO, I think the winner of the depleted bottom half will half the best chance to win the tournament.
The top half guys will be fighting hard just to make the final and the last man standing will probably be out of gas.
But you never know.  The top half could open up for a player and it might get easier.

Respectfully,
masterclass