Analysis for Chela-Bellucci (ATP Barcelona)

Head-to-head record 1:0

Brazilian rising star Thomaz Bellucci will face Argentine veteran Juan.Ignacio Chela in the opening round. Bellucci is a typical South-American player who loves clay and has everything he needs to be good at clay. He has a great 2008 season and used a string of Challenger tournament victories early in 2008 to break into the top 100 in the world as a 20-year-old. His career highest rank was No.67, achieved on June 16, 2008. If there is any successor of Gustavo Kuerten among the young Brazilians, we think it is Bellucci. As mentioned above, the 20-year-old Bellucci continued his rapid rise early in 2008. The first week of the year, ranked No.202, he made it to the quarterfinals of a Challenger in Sao Paulo. Bellucci had little success in his next few tournaments, but in February he got back on track qualifying into an ATP stop in Buenos Aires and then recording his first-ever ATP match win, over Eschauer, before bowing out in the next round to Juan Ignacio Chela. In April, Bellucci began an amazing string of Challenger match wins in singles play. First he won a minor Challenger in Florianopolis, Brazil, and made the final in doubles. Two weeks later, he ran his singles streak to 10 matches while winning a major Challenger in Tunis and also won the doubles title. Those wins got him into the top 100. The following week, at a minor Challenger in Rabat, he ran his streak to 15 matches to win the title and get his ranking to No.81. His streak ended at 17 matches next week to reach the quarterfinals of a challenger in Bordeaux, when he finally lost to Igor Kunitsyn, improving Bellucci's ranking to No.75. He has been confirming the good form since then and even if he hasn´t managed to achieve the big successes on ATP level yet, we think he has a great talent and big potential to do so soon. He will face experienced clay-court player Juan I. Chela. He is a typical defensive-minded clay-courter with solid movement and good play from the baseline so we expect the long rallies from the baseline today. Chela was struggling with injuries last year and drop out of the top 100. He is now fully fit but hasn’t start this year in form – he lost to Robredo in Vina del Mar and Buenos Aires, then he lost to Acasuso in Acapulco and most importantly, he retired the match at Indian Wells to Seppi (2:6,1:4). Last week, he was eliminated by Nadal which is not surprising but even his previous results weren´t impressive and we think that young Brazilian is a slight favourite for this one. Anything above 1.9 is good enough for us.