Intact/Shattered

So we're down to the final eight in the men's draw at Madrid, and the draw has fallen exactly to plan for the top seven seeds, who are all through. The one guy screwing it all up is the once-again underwhelming Gilles Simon, who lost to Ivan Ljubicic. So there we have it - the top seven... and Ivan.

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I'm pretty pleased with that, I think - it's a good indication of form going into Roland Garros and the big guys seem to be on song. The only one of the top seven that went to three sets was Juan Martin del Potro, who faced a pretty stern test against Stan Wawrinka, so they're all looking quite comfortable. And I'm pretty pleased with Ljubicic being through as well - he has had a real resurgence of form in the last few months and it's really great. He is one of the great statesmen and sportsmen of the game, and it'll be a shame when he finally retires.

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Over in the women's, on the other hand, we have total decimation of seeds, pretty much. Top seed, the recently impressive Dinara Safina, is still standing (and standing in style, even though she was pushed to three sets by Lucie Safarova), and Jelena Jankovic has kept her head in the game with a solid victory over Elena Vesnina, but teen queen Victoria Azarenka has crashed out to Agnes Szavay, and most of the other seeds went out earlier this week. Most disappointing, really.

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For the tournament's sake, you've got to hope that we get a Safina/Jankovic match -I hope they're not in the same half of the draw! I haven't checked. But even if they meet in the semis, that's the match you want to see. They're the two that really need a Slam to validate their positions (it might be too little too late for Jankovic, but she really is overdue) and it'll be interesting to see which one is hungrier. Personally, my money's on Safina, but Jankovic has shown some reasonable form in the past few weeks, so we shall see...

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Today's Results

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Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open (Madrid)

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Men's Draw

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Rafael Nadal def. Philipp Kohschreiber, walkover

Roger Federer def. James Blake, 6-2 6-4

Novak Djokovic def. Andreas Seppi, 6-4 6-4

Andy Murray def. Tommy Robredo, 7-5 6-1

Juan Martin del Potro def. Stanislas Wawrinka, 4-6 6-4 6-4

Andy Roddick def. Nikolay Davydenko, walkover

Ivan Ljubicic def. Gilles Simon, 3-6 6-4 6-3

Fernando Verdasco def. Juan Monaco, 7-5 6-2

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Women's Draw

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Dinara Safina def. Lucie Safarova, 6-0 4-6 6-3

Jelena Jankovic def. Elena Vesnina, 6-2 6-2

Agnes Szavay def. Victoria Azarenka, 4-6 6-2 6-2

Caroline Wozniacki def. Alisa Kleybanova, 6-2 6-2

Alona Bondarenko def. Anna Chakvetadze, 6-0 2-6 6-3