Tyler Begg into Semis of NZMT5 Christchurch

Tyler Begg defeated Richard Hornby of Christchurch 6-4 7-5 yesterday to reach the Semi's of the Canterbury Champs at Wilding Park.Begg mixed his game with aggression and angle passes of his backhand,lapses allowed Hornby to stay with Begg but when needed Begg stepped up his attack.Today he plays top seed Rubin Statham who has an ATP ranking of 331.This will be a great opportunity for Begg to mix it with one of New Zealands top players.Leela Beattie will also play a semi final this morning in the women's event. She will face Kathryn Westbury former Christchurch, in what will be an interesting match up.Westbury has been playing extensively in Asia and has been based in Australia and Thailand.Both have not played each other for a while with Westbury winning the last encounter.This meeting will be of interest to see where both players are at with their game with Leela based still in New Zealand.

Across the ditch play yesterday in the Australian Open brought no real surprises.Below are my tips for matches today.My tips in bold.
Andy Murray(GBR)[5] vs. John Isner(USA)[33]
Ivo Karlovic(CRO) vs. Rafael Nadal(ESP)[2]
Justine Henin(BEL) vs. Yanina Wickmayer(BEL)
Andy Roddick(USA)[7] vs. Fernando Gonzalez(CHI)[11]
Have highlighted this match and will go with upset of the day with Gonzalez to edge out Roddick
Alona Bondarenko(UKR)[31] vs. Jie Zheng(CHN)
Nadia Petrova(RUS)[19] vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova(RUS)[3]
Marin Cilic(CRO)[14] vs. Juan Martin Del Potro(ARG)[4]
Maria Kirilenko(RUS) vs. Dinara Safina(RUS)[2]

Another interesting match up is in the first round of the Australian Junior boys.
Sean Berman(AUS) vs. Sebastian Lavie(NZL)
Lavie based in France and moved there in his early junior years is New Zealands top ranked junior boy ,Sean Berman played much of his early junior days in New Zealand before leaving to the USA. He has come under USA on his ITF entry of tounaments until now where his new adopted county is Australia and is listed in the draw under Australia.Berman is of South African heritage.