The Latvian star made no mistake defeating Yen Hsun Lu from Chinese Taipei in straight sets 7-5, 6-2. Next up for Gulbis will be the double Grand Slam winner Marat Safin, who went from being one set down to seal the deal against last week's Indianapolis-winner Robby Ginepri. No wonder that it will be an interesting clash between the rising star Gulbis and the former Worln No. 1 Safin.

Let us hope that the Latvian eventually has found his redemption and that the doubles title with Dmitri Tursunov last week helped him back on his feet. It's not only Gulbis who has been struggled with bad shape the last months; Marat Safin hasn´t managed to do any good results this season since he declaired that he will put his rackets on the shelf when 2009 has came to an end. Maybe both of them will play better on the North American hard court and hopefully we will see them recording nice results during the Masters in Montreal and Cincinnati and in the US Open.

Safin made his mark on the ATP-circuit winning the title in Flashing Meadows at an age of 20 beating Pistol Pete in straight sets. The king of swing told after that game that Safin was the most talented guy that he ever had played against and that he wouldn't be surprised if the Russian dominated the tennis in the upcoming years. Unfortunately that wasn´t the case for Marat who only won one more Grand Slam title in Australian Open 2005. Actually he has´'t managed to win a single title since the 2005 Australian Open campaign. Now when his career is going to end soon he only has one chance left to lift a Grand Slam trophy again, even though the possibility is very small that the Russian wins in the US Open you should never count out the champion from 2000.