Paris Quarterfinals

The quarterfinal stage has been reached at the final Masters event of the year, Paris.  A few spots in the World Tour Finals are still up for grabs, which is a little unusual for this stage of the year.  There are no unseeded players remaining in the draw and only a 3rd set tiebreak upset by Anderson over Wawrinka (after the Swiss served for the match) preventing the top 8 seeds from all reaching the quarters.  It should be a great final 3 days of the tournament with several great matchups.

Here are the last eight with number of Masters quarters reached this year:
1) Novak Djokovic (SRB) 5
2) Roger Federer (SUI) 6
4) David Ferrer (ESP) 6
5) Tomas Berdych (CZE) 3
6) Kei Nishikori (JPN) 2
7) Milos Raonic (CAN) 6
8) Andy Murray (GBR) 4
14) Kevin Anderson (RSA) 2

Matchups:
Djokovic vs Murray
Ferrer vs Nishikori
Berdych vs Anderson
Federer vs Raonic

-Djokovic is the defending champion, having beaten Ferrer in the last year's final
-Those two, Federer, and Berdych return to the quarters after being there last year. Nadal and Del Potro missed the event, while Gasquet and Wawrinka were knocked out.
-This is 2nd straight year 7 of the top 8 seeds have reached the quarters in Paris.  This after a number of years of Paris being a wild and unpredictable tournament with Berdych, Soderling, Ferrer, and Tsonga (until this year) claiming their only Masters win there
-The Americans managed to go only 2-4 but they had 3 qualifiers.  Isner was knocked out of his first rounder by Monfils.  Querrey (def. Janowicz) and Sock (def. Andujar) won matches but lost in the second round, Sock falling to Raonic in a 3rd set tiebreak.  Young lost his main draw opener.
-Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Wawrinka, and now Murray have qualified for London on points.  Cilic has qualified because he won the US Open.  Nadal has pulled out so there is 4 open spots.  Nishikori and Berdych are both one win from qualifying.  Likely whoever goes farther between Ferrer and Raonic will take the last spot with Ferrer ahead at the moment by 25 points.
-We also saw a couple nice wins for 20-yr-old Frenchman Lucas Pouille (main draw wins #2 and #3 for his career) over Karlovic and Fognini.

I really like the possibility of a Djokovic/Federer final.  In that case I'll go with Djokovic as he is the fresher of the two, Federer has played quite a bit recently and still has London and the Davis Cup to look forward to.