Niklolay Davydenko heads the field at the Swiss Open where the defending champion Richard Gasquet will be hoping to transfer his recent good form from the grass at Wimbledon to the slower clay courts here in Gstaad.

The mercurial Frenchman, now riding at an all-time high at 7 in the rankings, was in wretched form prior to Wimbledon. A second round exit at Roland Garros, followed up by an embarrassing first round loss to a qualifier at Halle did little to bolster his confidence as he entered Nottingham as defending champion. A quarterfinal loss there in a match played indoors as a result of the constant rain meant that he had very little in the way of grass court preparation for Wimbledon. But it all came good for the talented Frenchman at SW19, realising his full potential there for the first time when he took out two-time finalist Andy Roddick from two sets to love down in an epic quarterfinal encounter, before he wearily submitted to the eventual five times champion Roger Federer in the semi-finals.

Top seeded Davydenko kicks off his campaign with an interesting match against Gael Monfils whom he beat in the third round on the way to a creditable fourth round finish at Wimbledon. The powerful Fenchman will fully test the counter-punching skills of the Russian and may well cause an upset. 

Mikhail Youzhny, seeded second, is also in a rich vein of form after his fourth round effort against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, where he led two sets to love before bowing out in 5 sets. The talented Russian has shown that he can be just as dangerous on clay as on any other surface when he beat Juan Carlos Ferrero at the French Open this year. He has a tough opener however against Stefan Koubek, the gritty journeyman from Austria.

Following the withdrawls of Ferrero, Marcos Baghdatis and Augustin Callieri, home favourite Stanislas Wawrinka has been installed as the seventh seed and could face Youzhny in the quarterfinals.

Wildcard entrant Igor Andreev is not a player that anyone in the draw will want to meet. The dangerous floater could pose problems for the eighth seeded Potito Starace should they face-off in the second round.

The 8 seeded players are:-

1. Nikolay Davydenko

2. Mikhail Youzhny

3. Richard Gasquet

4. Philipp Kohlschreiber

5. Paul-Henri Mathieu

6. Marc Gicquel

7. Stanislas Wawrinka

8. Potito Starace

€58,700 is on offer to the eventual winner out of a total prize money purse of €421,250, and 175 precious ranking points. The runner up gets €34,500 and 120 ranking points.

Andre Jones

Gstaad