World Tour Finals Day 2

At last, we've had an interesting match at the World Tour Finals! After three more blow-out, straight matches in the first singles and the first two doubles matches, the night match between Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal featured stellar tennis from both players. Roddick won the first set and was up a break in the second set, but Nadal picked up his game and the American couldn't quite stay level with the world number one from the back of the court. It was a very hard-fought match, and even though he didn't come away with the victory, Roddick has to be encouraged by the result.

He came into the event playing solid tennis, but he hadn't had a win against a top-ten player since Cincinnati, and his injury status was sort of unresolved. But he started the event playing the only player in his group that he has a losing record against, the reigning champion of the past three grand slams, and world number one. If he could have won that match, Roddick would have felt pretty confident about being able to run the table. Frankly, if he can play as well as he did against Nadal in his next two matches, Berdych doesn't have a shot, and Djokovic could be in trouble. Obviously, Roddick will be disappointed by the way his level dipped at key moments (serving up a minibreak in the second set tiebreak?) but overall, he was playing at a very high level. He forced the top player in the world to dig deep and play his very best tennis. Roddick's still in with a shout, which is the benefit of the round robin format.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think we may have our second and perhaps third tightly-contested matches, since the line-up is absolutely appetizing. First off, we have Federer vs. Murray, a rematch of the Australian Open, Toronto, and Shanghai finals, this year. Murray leads the overall head to head 8-5 and this year by 2-1. Both of them won their opening matches, so a victory tomorrow would all but seal their place in the semifinals. Not to mention the fact that Federer won their meeting at the finals last year (in London!) but Murray won the year before - there's a lot on the line, here. I think Murray probably played better in his opening round match, but his opponent also played worse. Murray has gotten the better of Federer more often than not lately (when it hasn't been in a Grand Slam, anyway) but Fed has been in better form. This one's too close to call.

But if there's a lot riding on the first match, there's even more riding on the second one. Robin Soderling and David Ferrer, who each lost their opening rounds, need a win to stay in contention. Not to mention, the pair met five times this year (the most meetings of any pair in 2010, leading up to the World Tour Finals) with Soderling leading 3-2, but Ferrer won two of the last three. Their five meetings were all since Wimbledon, too - which means they have had plenty of looks at each other's games in the past few months. Ferrer played better in his opening match, but Soderling was in great form two weeks ago in Paris. Again, this one is just too close to call.

I'm excited for both of these matches, and hoping that they can live up to the level of play that Roddick and Nadal set today.

World Tour Finals Day 1

So the first day of action at the World Tour Finals was a bit of a dud, in all honesty.

Robin Soderling may have replaced Andy Murray as the world number four and won his first Masters Series shield last week, but he looked very much like the Soderling of a couple years ago who was mired around 25 in the world against Murray today. Honestly, I was really puzzled by Soderling's tactics today. It was always going to be tough for Soderling to hang from the back of the court with Murray, since the Scot can run down just about anything. But I thought that the solution for the Swede was just to bludgeon the ball with increasing force. That's been the formula for beating Murray in the past - Verdasco, Gonzalez, Berdych, Cilic, Querrey, even Soderling did it that way in their previous matches. The secret was out. But shockingly, today Robin's gameplan was to rush the net every chance he got, where he was either completely helpless on his volleys or a target for Murray to pass. It was a beatdown.

The second match, between Roger Federer and David Ferrer, looks like it had a similar scoreline, but it was actually a bit closer than that. Ferrer may have won fewer games, but that's in large part because he started off the match in absolutely awful form, spraying his forehand and unable to hit a first serve. He finally got into the match, but he was already down a double break, and once he blinked in the second set, it was pretty much over. Still, it was a much more encouraging performance from Ferrer than from Soderling - the Spaniard actually knew what he had to do in order to beat Federer, he just couldn't play at that high a level for long enough, and he missed a couple key points. Soderling just looked baffled and overawed by the situation.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's matches, it's very difficult for me to see Berdych upsetting Djokovic. Since the two played at Wimbledon, their levels of play could not have been any different. Berdych has been absolutely AWOL while Djokovic has found the best form he's been in since early 2008. Barring a miraculous revival from Berdych (or a grievous injury to Novak) there's no way that the Serb loses this one.

The night match tomorrow could be very interesting, but I think that the odds of letdown are pretty high here. Both players are in questionable condition here - Nadal skipped the last tournament of the year due to injury. We'll find out tomorrow whether he would have skipped that tournament regardless of where it fell in the calendar, or if he was just limiting his play in order to maximize his chances here at the year-end championships. Normally, that's not a tactic I'd associate with Nadal, but these championships are the biggest hole in Nadal resume by far. If he was just saving his strength for this event, the rest of the field could be in trouble. But if he's really hobbled and worn down by another long (if spectacular) season, then the other players in his group have a good shot.

Roddick's level of play may be just as much a question mark. He squeaked into the year-end championships after his year, which started out spectacularly, was sidetracked by a mild bout of mono and injury. All week, he's been saying that he's just glda to have qualified, and nobody's really talking about him as a contender. Either he's really not thinking he's at a level where he can win four to five matches against the best players in the game, or he's just flying under the radar.

We'll know a lot more about the answers to both of these questions after the match tomorrow. I'm very curious to see how it goes.

World Tour Finals Preview

Before looking ahead to the Tour Finals in London, a quick look back at the culmination of the Paris Masters. Semifinal day was one of the best days of the entire tennis year, with Gael Monfils upsetting Roger Federer and Robin Soderling holding off a stern challenge from Michael Llodra. Both winners had to save match points, and both matches were settled in a third-set tiebreak. I considered it a great rebuke for all the commentators who said that the tennis season ended after the U.S. Open - this was a pretty exciting result. The final didn't quite live up to expectations, as Monfils was never really in it, even though he took the second set to a tiebreak. Kudos to Soderling for winning his first Masters Series shield - honestly, I'm surprised it took him that long. Monfils played amazing tennis but couldn't quite close the deal. I think next year could be big for him, though.

In any case, the draw came out today for the World Tour Finals, and I've read articles complaining both about the weakness of Federer's gorup and of Nadal's group. Personally, I think the two groups are relatively well-balanced, and should lead to some interesting match-ups.

Group A has top seed Rafael Nadal, U.S. Open finalist Novak Djokovic, Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych, and 8th-place finisher Andy Roddick. Despite the fact that Roddick is lowest-ranked player in the year-end finals, he's not the weakest player here. Tomas Berdych has been in terrible form since he made the final at Wimbledon, going 8-12 in that span, and only winning back-to-back matches two times. He also has a 1-6 record against the other players in his section this year, with the lone win coming over a lackluster Djokovic in the Wimbledon semis. It's tough to imagine Berdych making a run here, considering just how poorly he's played. Since beating Federer and Djokovic back to back, Berdych's biggest win has been against world number 37 Andrey Golubev. Barring a stunning reversal of fortune, he goes 0-3.

Roddick is an interesting question mark. Since the U.S. Open, Roddick has played stellar tennis - until he's had to play a top player. He lost an incredibly close match to Gael Monfils, then really underperformed in his matches against Federer and Soderling. Thankfully for Roddick, they're both in the other Round Robin group. Instead he gets Nadal and Djokovic - and Roddick is 1-0 against each of them this year. Unfortunately for Roddick, he beat both of them outdoors in North America. While Roddick will probably enjoy the conditions here as well, it remains to be seen if it will allow him to play his absolute best. Of course, if Roddick's serve is firing and he can play consistently enough to let loose on a few of his groundstrokes, he'll be tough to beat.

While Roddick's injury status is a question mark - he looked healthy enough in Paris, but he's been hampered through much of the year - it's nowhere near as up in the air as Rafael Nadal's. He's been having shoulder troubles this Fall, and even withdrew from the Paris Masters as a precaution. It will be interesting to see whether he skipped Paris simply because he was having injury difficulties, or if he was trying to maximize his chances at the year-end championships, where Nadal has never done well, historically. He's 4-7 at the event in three appearances. Shockingly, Nadal and Djokovic have only played once this year, while they played an astonishing seven times in 2009, and their matches are always close.

Djokovic has been in good form, but he may be more focused on the Davis Cup final, which follows pretty closely after the WTF in London. The biggest question will be whether or not Nadal is injured, but I think that the odds are pretty good that any two of Roddick, Nadal, and Djokovic will find their way out of this section of the draw. The odds are longest for Berdych, but he has wins over everybody in his section, at least...

That's not the case in Group B, where David Ferrer is 0-10 against Roger Federer. Of course, Robin Soderling, who is also in that group, once had that sort of record against Roger. He may have notched his first win there this year, but Federer is still 24-1 against those two players. The intriguing part of that section of the draw is that the fourth player is one of the few people who Federer has a losing record against: Andy Murray.

It's appropriate, first of all, that Robin Soderling and David Ferrer meet up in this round robin group. Ferrer, while not having any particularly big results this year, has won more matches than any player not named Nadal or Federer. And he and Soderling have faced off more often this season than any other pair of players, with Soderling leading the head-to-head 3-2 this year. In addition to this competitive match-up and Ferrer's abysmal record against Federer, Ferrer actually has a 3-1 record against Andy Murray, though all of those wins were on clay. As I noted, Ferrer has not had any particularly big wins this year, though he has been in five finals and won two titles. He's been a solid player, showing up every week, but that may not be enough to get him results when he's only player other top guys. On the other hand, in Ferrer's only other appearance here, he made the finals of the event, going 3-0 in Round Robin play. So who knows?

Soderling enters the event on the biggest high, having just won the biggest title of his career. He's also the only player entering the event on a winning streak, as a result. He made the semis here last year, beating Nadal and Djokovic along the way, before he lost to Juan Martin Del Potro. As noted above, Soderling has a terrible record against Federer, and while the Sod does love indoor courts, the conditions are about as different as could be compared to the slow, heavy courts at Roland Garros where the Swede got his one win against Roger. Soderling and Murray have a competitive match history, 2-2, though Soderling has won their only match this year, which was their first since 2006.

Murray's form coming into this tournament is interesting. He just dipped to number five, being superseded by Soderling in the rankings. He played well in the U.S. hardcourt swing prior to the U.S. Open, and then won in Shanghai, but it's been either feast or famine for Murray, who lost to Ljubicic and Monaco when he wasn't winning in China. He can regain the fourth spot in the rankings if he makes it further than Soderling - or even wins an extra match! - but he has a tricky section and he may finish the year at five if he cracks under the pressure of being in London. It's been both a blessing and a curse for Murray in the past.

And of course, Federer. Despite losing to Monfils in the Bercy semifinals, he very nearly won that match, and he had won the previous two tournaments heading into that match. He's 29-7 in the World Tour Finals, with four titles to his name. He hasn't won it since 2007, so he must be itching to get back in that winner's circle. Also, if he wants to reclaim the world number one ranking from Rafael Nadal (and he surely does) then a win here would be a great step towards that in 2011. I don't want to put too much weight on it, but Federer's results here could indicate whether he really can get close to the dominating form he showed at the peak of his career, or if those days are really behind him for good.

Lots on the line here.

Paris Masters Quarterfinals

And that does it! The race to the year-end championships in London finished today, with one win and one loss. Andy Roddick started off the day with a victory over Ernests Gulbis, which gave him enough points to ensure that Jurgen Melzer was unable to qualify for the top eight, even if he were to run through the draw and win the whole tournament. After that Monfils recovered from a complete misstep of a drop shot that cost him the first set tiebreak to beat Fernando Verdasco, the last remaining challenger for one of those eight spots. With the other contenders out of the running, Berdych, Ferrer, and Roddick were all assured of qualifying for the elite group.

However, this didn't necessarily inspire them to stellar play. Tomas Berdych was up a set and in a second-set tiebreak against Nikolay Davydenko, when apparently the wheels just came off. After losing the tiebreak, Davydenko fed Berdych a bagel, improving his record to 9-1 against the Czech. And David Ferrer lost a tightly-contested (but not especially well-played match) against Jurgen Melzer, who ended up enjoying the conditions more than his baselining, dirtballing Spaniard opponent. Whether Melzer was disappointed or relieved by not having to worry about qualifying for London, one can't be sure, but it was still a good win over Ferrer, who's been playing good tennis in this last part of the season.

The other upset of the day was a complete and utter shocker. Michael Llodra came up with some absolutely inspired tennis to beat Novak Djokovic, the second seed and defending champion. Down 6-3 in the first set tiebreaker, Llodra played five of the best points of his career to come back win it, 8-6. And he kept that form up in the second set, breaking Djokovic twice while saving the three break points he faced. This was a huge match, because the pair will likely face off again in a couple weeks in the Davis Cup final. France may not have anyone in the year-end championship, but they do have a couple players who are finishing the year hot, which they'll need to be to go into a hostile Belgrade and win the Cup.

The other matches of the day were not terribly interesting. Federer beat Stepanek, and is starting to look a lot like his imperious old self again. Soderling wasn't too challenged by Wawrinka either, who was unable to finish his season by building on his big run at the U.S. Open. And Andy Murray was too steady for Cilic, who really outplayed the Scot for much of the match, but wilted in the pressure moments. The Croat looked ready to become a major player at the start of the year, but he has not finished strong. He has a ton of points to defend in the first few months of 2011 as well, so here's hoping he can find his form in the off-season.

Looking ahead to the quarterfinals, we continue to have some very appetizing match-ups. Jurgen Melzer plays sacrificial lamb to Roger Federer. They've played twice this year, both times in Grand Slams, and Federer has won 6 out of 6 sets. Only one even went to a tiebreak, the others were either 6-2 or 6-3. But Melzer is playing with house money at this point. He'll be going to London for doubles, so he'll certainly be signed up as an alternate in case one of the top eight guys is injured (still not sure how Rafa's shoulder and knees are doing...) and there's no reason for him to do anything but play his best tennis at this point. That said, that probably won't be enough to trouble Federer.

Federer's semifinal opponent may be too close to call at this point, but whoever it may be, we know they're nursing an injury. Gael Monfils was troubled by some knee problems in his victory over Verdasco (the crowd really helped him over the finish line) and Andy Murray's wrist was bothering him in his match against Nalbandian. Murray leads the head-to-head against Monfils, but the Frenchman loves playing in Paris, and he made the final here last year. The Parisian crowd doesn't seem to be too enamored of the petulant, fussy Scotsman, so expect them to be a major factor in the match, if it's close. Monfils needs to show up, though - if he plays his passive game, he'll be toast. Murray is just as a good a defender as he is, and on most days, Murray is better at turning defense into attack. Still, this should be a fun one.

In the bottom half of the draw, the sudden loss of Novak Djokovic makes the stronger semifinal significantly more important. Instead of the Djoker waiting in the semis, the winner of the Roddick-Soderling match will get either Nikolay Davydenko, who has been in poor form this part of the season, or Michael Llodra, who may have put on an astounding performance against Djokovic, but it seems unlikely that he'll be able to maintain that form. He lost to a player ranked 131st in the world at a French challenger just a few weeks ago.

So whoever wins between Andy Roddick and Robin Soderling will feel like they've got their ticket to the finals punched. The pair has already played twice this year in ATP Masters Series events, and Roddick came out on top both times, but they were both decided by extremely close margins. Soderling's record is strange - despite having made 2 Grand Slam finals, he's never made the final of a Masters event. There are two factors in play here that will make this match interesting: the first is that the court surface here is incredibly quick, which helps Roddick since Soderling takes huge swings at his groundstrokes, and the timing is much tougher on a fast surface. That's why Soderling excels on the slow clay of Roland Garros, the bounce gives him time to set up for his shots. But on the other hand, the other two times Roddick played Soderling were both outdoors and on U.S. soil. Of course, Roddick thrives in America, but being indoors helps Soderling on his serve, since he has one of the highest ball tosses in the game, and the lack of wind or sunlight helps him with that. Soderling actually beat Roddick indoors in France back in 2008. This is a real pick-em, with a lot on the line for both guys.

The other quarterfinal, between Davydenko and Llodra, will be interesting because nobody really expected either of these guys to make it thus far, much less further. But sometime, you can find your form at just the right time and see the draw open up for you a bit, and turn around a rather humdrum year. It will also be interesting to see if Llodra can continue to conjur up the kind of magic he displayed against Djokovic, which was really some stupendous stuff.

I like that the season is ending with a bang, and a lot of the top players still at their best. It often has happened in the past that the top guys lose their motivation in the final weeks of the season, which is why the Paris final has often had some surprising winners in the past, and why Federer has never gotten past the quarters here - before this year, anyway.

Paris Masters Round of 16

Despite the fact that we're in the last week of the regular tennis year, a time where there are always some renewed calls for the shortening of the season, the tournament in Paris has been relatively free of big-name upsets. The top players don't seem particularly jaded or worn out, at least through the first two rounds. Out of the 16 seeds, only four have lost thus far, the highest of which was Mikhail Youzhny, who retired against Ernests Gulbis with an injury. In addition to the ninth-seeded Russian, Nicolas Almagro lost to Radek Stepanek, Ivan Ljubicic lost to Stan Wawrinka, and John Isner lost to Michael Llodra. Really, none of those are shocking results, and as a result of the dearth of surprising matches in the first couple rounds, the latter stages of the tournament are shaping up to be very interesting.

The top quarter features Roger Federer against Radek Stepanek, and they played as recently as last week in Basel. Unfortunately for Radek, he got blitzed in that match, and I don't see any reason why he won't suffer the same fate. The second match in this quarter, though, is potentially more interesting. Jurgen Melzer and David Ferrer are both aiming to qualify for the year-end championships, and while Melzer needs this match to keep his chances alive, Ferrer could lose this match and still have a good chance of making it to London. The Spaniard looked a little shaky against the Italian Fognini today, so he may be troubled by Melzer, who is still on a winning streak from his title in Vienna.

The other big match for the ATP Tour finals tomorrow is between Gael Monfils and Fernando Verdasco. If either Verdasco or Melzer loses, then Berdych qualifies automatically. If both lose, then Roddick, Ferrer, and Berdych have all sealed their spots. Verdasco was almost out of the tournament in the first round, down a set to Frenchman Arnaud Clement, before he reeled off nine straight games to win the match. That had more to do with Clement than Hot Sauce, though. Monfils also had trouble in his first round match, coming back from a double-break and 5-1 down in the first set to win it in two. Monfils will have to start a lot better against Fernando, but based on their recent form and the home field advantage, you have to learn towards Le Monf in this one.

The fourth match in the top half of the draw is a rematch of this year's Australian Open semifinal between Andy Murray and Marin Cilic. You have to say, considering how hot both of those players were at that point in the year, neither one had the success they might have expected this season. Cilic has been playing quite poorly since as far back as the clay-court swing, showing none of the firepower he demonstrated at the end of last year and the start of this one. Andy Murray just got through a very tough second-round match against David Nalbandian, who is frankly playing better tennis than the Croat these days. It'd be tough for Cilic to upset Murray again, even though he showed he has the potential to play that well when he trounced the Scot in last year's U.S. Open. He hasn't been able to play that level of tennis lately.

In the bottom half, Andy Roddick gets another early start - playing at 10:30 in the morning for the second straight day. It certainly didn't bother him in his match against Jarkko Nieminen, and I don't expect it should affect him much against Gulbis. The Latvian is another player who is capable of beating Roddick - of beating anybody, really - but he hasn't been at his best lately. Gulbis will have to play better tennis than he's played since the French Open, or hope that Roddick's serve isn't firing tomorrow. At least one of those things will have to happen for Ernie to hope to spoil the American's bid for another appearance at the year-end championships.

Roddick or Gulbis will probably be playing Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals, unless Stanislas Wawrinka can pull off an upset. The Swiss number two looked to be poised for a career resurgence at the U.S. Open, where he blew Andy Murray off the court, finished the campaign of the last American standing, and made his first career grand slam quarterfinal. Since then, he's gone 4-3, but he has lost to Federer, Nadal, and Monfils, so those were tough matches. But Wawrinka needs to end the season with another big win under his belt under the wing of new coach Peter Lundgren. Soderling might just be that scalp. That's going to be an interesting one.

Novak Djokovic has the unenviable task of playing one of the two remaining Frenchmen in Paris, as Michael Llodra upset John Isner, who was probably ready to end his season and pay attention to some NCAA football. Djokovic won this title last year, so he has a lot of points to defend, and has been playing solid tennis since the U.S. Open, since the only person he's lost to in that time was Roger Federer. Tough luck for Llodra, but this match could be an interesting preview of the second singles rubber at the Davis Cup final in a couple weeks. Both of these players will be looking to learn as much about their opponents as possible tomorrow, in preparation for that tie.

The last Round of 16 match is another interesting one. Tomas Berdych plays Nikolay Davydenko. Berdych is the higher-ranked player, but the question of who's in better form is really a race to the bottom. Berdych hasn't made a tournament semifinal since Wimbledon, and Davydenko hasn't made one since Rotterdam, back in February! But Davydenko owns the Czech in the head-to-head, winning 8 of their 9 matches, and his only loss came at Wimbledon, where Davydenko could lose to just about anybody. I don't know who to lean towards in this one, but if Berdych loses, he won't have much confidence heading into the year-end championships.

Paris Masters Preview and Week 44 Look Back

We had a pair of hometown winners this week, as Roger Federer beat Novak Djokovic in Basel and David Ferrer beat surprise finalist and lucky loser Marcel Granollers in Valencia. Once the finals were set, those are the results we might have expected, but the semifinals had a couple of surprises.

The Roddick-Federer match in the semis looked like it would be an appetizing match-up, but unfortunately, Andy Roddick didn't really show up for the match. He played one of the poorest matches I've seen him play since he lost to Gilles Simon while suffering from mono this summer. He started the match serving at about 30%, and while he did improve that percentage as the match went on, his serve was never really on. And for Roddick, it's hard for him to win a match against anyone when that shot isn't working, and it's impossible for him to do it against Federer, even when Roger doesn't have to do anything special. That's really the worst possible result for Roddick - if he had lost but played a respectable match, he could take pride in that, but losing the match due to his own poor standard of play is not going to help build his confidence going into the last weeks of the season.

David Ferrer played Robin Soderling in the Valencia semis for the fifth time this year, and he won for the second time. That was a bit of a surprise, but Marcel Granollers' dismissal of Gilles Simon was more of a shock. Granollers had lost to Teymuraz Gabashvili in the qualifying draw, but got into the main tournament thanks to a withdrawal. He then won three matches against higher-ranked players and made it to the final.

As a result of the action this week, there weren't any major moves on the road to the finals in London. There's one week of regular action left, and here's how it stands. The likeliest outcome is that the current top 8 players will be the 8 who make it to the finals. The only way that Berdych (currently ranked 6th) doesn't make it is if either Youzhny or Verdasco wins the tournament and Roddick and Ferrer pass him, which would mean Roddick would have to make the semis and Ferrer would have to make at least the second round, while Berdych doesn't even win a match. The odds are good for Berdych.

Roddick and Ferrer are also in good shape, but they're not as sure bets. Melzer could bump Roddick if the Austrian wins the tournament and Roddick doesn't get any points, Youzhny would need to make the final, and Verdasco could do it by making the semis. Ferrer would need Verdasco to make the final or Youzhny to win. Considering Verdasco's form lately and Youzhny's back injury, I think the top 8 players are safe bets. Youzhny would need to get through Roddick and Verdasco would need to get through Gael Monfils and Andy Murray. Melzer would need to get through Ferrer and Federer, the winners of both of last week's tournaments. But two years ago, Tsonga needed to win the tournament to make the finals, and he played the second-best tournament of his life to do it. So anything can happen.

Looking at the other players involved in the BNP Paribas Masters. The most interesting thing is Nadal's withdrawal from the tournament - I think it may be because the Spaniard wants to make a better showing at the year-end tournament, where he has never performed well. That's one of the few remaining holes in his resume, so he may be skipping Paris to be fresher for London. Or he could really be on the verge of ending his season, which wouldn't shock me much either.

As a result, Federer is the top seed and favorite to win the tournament, since he's now on a nine match and two-tournament winning streak. As if that weren't enough, he has a pretty clear path to the semifinals. He opens against either Mahut or Gasquet, followed by Nicolas Almagro and then either Melzer or Ferrer. There's nobody in that quarter than can bother Federer, these days.

But his potential semifinal opponent, Andy Murray, has beaten him in two of their three meetings, this year. The Scot has an interesting draw, finding David Nalbandian or Marcel Granollers in his second-round match. Of course, he trounced Nalbandian earlier this year, so that may not be as exciting as it looks at first glance. After that, he could get either Cilic or one of two Ukrainian players. In the quarters, he'll probably have Verdasco or Monfils, who is now the top Frenchman in the tournament with Tsonga's injury-induced withdrawal.

The third quarter is an interesting one - Andy Roddick has the most to play for in the quarter, for sure. He'll open against either Xavier Malisse or a hot Jarkko Nieminen, and then he'll have either Gulbis or Youzhny, which is going to be a big match for two potential players in London. The other half of that quarter has Robin Soderling and Ivan Ljubicic, as well as Stan Wawrinka and Gilles Simon. You have to favor Soderling to come through, but there aren't really any weak spots there. Roddick has won both of their matches so far this year, so he can't be too upset about his draw.

Roddick also has to like that his most likely semifinal opponent is Novak Djokovic, against whom Roddick has played exceptionally well lately. Djokovic has another tough quarter, since it has Berdych, Isner, and Davydenko in it. In addition, Djokovic has to play either Monaco or Sam Querrey in his first round. Isner could open against Llodra - the pair played an epic match two weeks ago in Montpellier. The third round match between Berdych and Davydenko will be a big one for both players, assuming Davydenko can get past either Bellucci or Kohlschreiber.

There's still lots of action left in this last week of the regular season.

Week 44 Semifinals

We're through to the final four in both of the ATP tournaments taking place this week, and there are some very appetizing match-ups. Quarterfinals day was maybe lacking some of the excitement that it looked like it might have had, but there was still some amazing tennis on display.

Out of the eight matches taking place today, only two were not won in straight sets. Argentine Juan Monaco faltered against Lucky Loser Marcel Granollers, who continues his campaign as one of the two remaining Spaniards in Valencia. That's a big win for Granollers, who was 17-20 on the year coming into this tournament. Unfortunately, I don't think he can pull of that magic again in the semis, as he faces Gilles Simon, who ousted Nikolay Davydenko in three - though it should have only taken two. Davydenko played brilliantly for intervals, but then he would completely lose his way. In the end, Simon was just too steady.

The other semifinal may not go terribly well for the other remaining Spaniard, David Ferrer, who is rewarded for his straight sets defeat of Andreas Seppi with the dominant player of the tournament thus far, Robin Soderling, who ousted Gael Monfils as if it were no small feat. It was strong play from Soderling, but honestly, Monfils didn't really show up for this match, which is a shame. Having just won a tournament last week and summarily dismissed Stanislas Wawrinka in the previous round, I was hopeful that Monfils had reached a new level in his career, but the quality of his play dropped precipitously in the quarterfinals. I expect Ferrer will be a sterner test for the Swede, but Soderling leads their head-head 8-3, including winning 3 out of 4 matches played this year.

Ferrer is in a tricky situation, which is that he needs to accumulate points to cement his place in the year-end-championships, but he doesn't want to exhaust himself before next week's tournament in Paris, where there are even more points on offer. A loss here wouldn't be the end of the world. Another player who is in the exact same boat is Andy Roddick, who wishes he was merely 3-8 against his semifinal opponent. But no, the American faces off against his greatest nemesis and hometown hero Roger Federer, against whom Roddick is a dismal 2-19. This is their first meeting since the epic Wimbledon final in July of 2009, and also the site of their very first meeting way back in 2001. Federer won that one in a third set tiebreak, and it may be a similar result tomorrow. A win for Roddick would be huge, but a loss isn't going to hurt his spirit too much - he came into this week without any serious expectations, considering his layoff, and he has played some great tennis. If he gets an extra day to get to France for the Paris Masters and get himself ready for that tournament, that's just fine. And really, it's tough to bet on the guy with a 2-19 record.

The final semi features a rematch of one of the most significant early round matches at the U.S. Open - Serb Novak Djokovic played his junior countryman Viktor Troicki and looked out of it in the very first round, down a break in a decisive set, and with a point to go down a double break. Djokovic managed to claw his way back to win the match and ultimately go on to beat Federer in the semis and make the final. Since then, Troicki won the first tournament of his career. Djokovic, of course, is trying to defend the title he won here last year. I expect that Novak will win this one, but it could be tricky, if Troicki brings his best stuff to the court.

Despite all the other matches going on tomorrow, the biggest question of the day will be whether Roddick can maybe pull of that magical upset and get another notch on his belt against Federer. It's not a decisive match for either player in terms of career trajectories, but a win would be a huge boost for Andy. For Federer, it probably won't affect him too much either way, and Roddick won't be surprised if he comes up second best. But a win could Roddick all kinds of momentum heading into the year's final weeks. After a very up-and-down year, it would be great to end on a high note.

Week 44 Quarterfinals

Interesting results so far in this penultimate week of regular ATP action. Since it's the end of the season, some players are battered and bruised - before play even started, four of the sixteen seeds withdrew because of injury or exhaustion: Melzer, Youzhny, Tsonga, and Ljubicic. Three of them had been in finals just a few days prior, so it shouldn't be too surprising. Tsonga's season is over with a knee injury, so you can't blame him for pulling out, and Youzhny was hampered by a back problem in his loss in the final. But all three of them were in the running for the year-end finals in London, so it's a shame they couldn't try to make a big push.

As for that run-up to London, there were quite a few players who were still in the running who did make it to play this week. Fernando Verdasco, just on the verge of qualifying in ninth place, won one match before he got trounced by Gilles Simon. He's now won a single match since he made the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open, and unless he has a sharp turnaround in form and gets to at least the quarters in next week's masters event, it's almost certain that he'll miss out. The top contender who hadn't yet clinched his spot, Tomas Berdych, continued a similar vein of bad play in his loss to Tobias Kamke, but thanks to the poor performance of the other contenders, I am pretty confident that he'll stumble into the championships all the same. Marin Cilic also had a possibility of making the finals, but he lost to Nalbandian today, and he's done.

The players in seventh and eighth, the last two spots that haven't been decided, are the only ones doing well. David Ferrer is in to the quarterfinals in Valencia, while Andy Roddick is at the same stage in Basel. Both are showing good form, and should head into the finals with some momentum. It's almost a shame that there was so much chance for excitement as we come down to the wire, but it's all but assured at this point that the players who were in the top eight a month or so ago will remain in those positions and get to the final. Not a lot of movement in those top spots in the points race.

Anyway, the quarterfinals on offer tomorrow are really extremely strong, consider these are merely 500-level tournaments. It shows the depth of the draws, as well as the fact that not all of the top players run out of gas as the season winds down. In Basel, Roger Federer gets the tricky Czech Radek Stepanek - the match would have been potentially tough a year or two ago, but Stepanek has slowed down a lot this year, and he hasn't been able to frustrate opponents the way he used to. Particularly in his hometown tournament, you can expect Federer to get through without too much trouble.

Who Federer's opponent will be is not so clear, though. Andy Roddick plays David Nalbandian for a shot at Federer in the semis, and that's a popcorn match. Who can forget the five-set thriller they played way back in the 2003 U.S. Open semifinals, where Roddick saved a match point before he went on to win the title? Now Roddick is much higher ranked than Nalby coming into the event, but Nalbandian is still capable of playing well enough to beat just about anybody, and the strength of his return matches up well against Roddick's biggest asset, his serve. I lean towards Roddick here, but it could go either way.

In the bottom half of the draw, Viktor Troicki plays Richard Gasquet, while Novak Djokovic plays Robin Haase, who is coming back from an injury layoff. Best of luck to the young Dutch player, but his campaign ends against Djokovic, who looked awesome against Jarkko Nieminen. The other quarter is tougher to call, though. Troicki and Gasquet are both very strong players just getting into the middle stage of their careers, and while Gasuqet is trying to get back to the level he was at a few years ago, Troicki is playing some of the best he's ever played, just now starting to live up to his potential. This one could go either way.

In Valencia, there are three Spaniards left, and it's a shame that two of them have to play each other. Juan Monaco needs to follow up the biggest win he's had in a long time when he ousted Andy Murray in the second round. He'll play lucky loser Granollers, and he should get through that one. The other Spaniard, David Ferrer, gets Italian Andreas Seppi, and he should win that one with ease. The other two semis, though, are much more interesting.

Gilles Simon, who ousted Fernando Verdasco, gets another struggling top player in Nikolay Davydenko. The two have similar games, though Davydenko does a bit more heavy hitting and Simon does a bit more running, they're both brutal counterpunchers. Neither player has been at their best this year, but a good finish to this season could set the stage for a renewed campaign in 2011. I lean towards Simon based on recent form, but Davydenko is a very dangerous player. The final quarterfinal is a thriller - Gael Monfils, who is on one of the longest winning streaks of his career, gets second seed Robin Soderling after a thorough dismantling of a dangerous opponent in Stan Wawrinka. I actually lean towards Monfils pulling the upset, as he's been showing some very encouraging signs of a new level of seriousness in his approach to his tennis.

In any case, tomorrow looks to be an excellent day of tennis. I'm eager to see how it plays out.

Week 43 Wrap-Up and Week 44 Preview

We had four finals take place today, and all but one went three sets. Shockingly, the one that was a straight-set victory was the one that featured a first-time finalist upsetting a top ten player and multiple title winner already this year. Mikhail Youzhny was in his fifth final of 2010, while Kukushkin was just in the first of his career. However, Kukushkin got a bit lucky, because the top seed had just played three consecutive three set matches, and he had saved match points in the last two. No matter how tough you are, that will wear on a player. Youzhny must have been drained in losing the final 6-2, 7-6(2). A great showing for the other Mikhail (the first final this year between players who share the same name, by the way), who jumps up 30 spots in the ranking.

The other finals were all close, but none was closer than the all-Austrian final between Jurgen Melzer and Andreas Haider-Maurer. Despite having a great year and enjoying his career high ranking, Melzer had yet to win a title this year, and he was defending points from a victory in last year's Vienna tournament. On the other hand, Haider-Maurer had barely played in any top tier tournaments in his career, and he only made it into the tournament as a lucky loser. He won the first set in an incredibly tight tiebreak, then lost the second set in another tiebreak. After that, the veteran's experience won out. But Haider-Maurer will be back - his play was really a revelation, this week.

In France, Gael Monfils played Ivan Ljubicic. Neither player has a winning record in finals, but the Frenchman's record was just abysmal. He was 2-9 coming in to this week, but the advantage of the hometown crowd allowed him to overcome a short patch of sub-standard play and win the match and the title in three sets. Kudos to Monfils - he could really be a different caliber of player if he could improve his record in these sorts of big, decisive matches.

Of course, the biggest final of the week was between Kim Clijsters and year-end number one Caroline Wozniacki. It would have been the biggest title of Wozniacki's career, but it wasn't going to happen. Kim has won the year-end title twice before, and she won in a hard-fought match, but her victory never really seemed to be in doubt. Wozniacki raised her level of play to come back from being down 4-1 in the secon set to win it 7-5, but she couldn't keep it up and Clijsters won in the third. It's a bit of a disappointing end to the season for Caroline, but consider her lack of a major win (and her less-than-stellar results against the top players) means that despite her number one ranking, she has a lot of room to improve her results next year. And at age 20, there's no reason she can't do just that.

Looking ahead to next week, we have a pair of 500-level tournaments taking place in Valencia, Spain and Basel, Switzerland. Since this the second-last week of regular ATP action for the season, the fields are stacked. Seventeen of the world's top 20 players are in action. The only ones missing are Marcos Baghdatis, who withdraw from Basel, Mardy Fish, whose season ended a couple weeks ago with injury, and Rafael Nadal - and really, what does he need with another 500 tournament?

It's tough to say which draw is tougher - both of them are filled with dangerous players, and there are a lot of first-round matches that could just as well be quarterfinals. It's also true that this is crunch time for the seven players who have a shot at grabbing one of the three remaining spots in the year-end championships.

In Valencia, Andy Murray is the top seed, but he's certainly not guaranteed an easy path to the final. He opens against Feliciano Lopez, and then gets Juan Monaco, the only player to have already played his first-round match. Getting through that, he'll probably get Tsonga or Tursunov in the quarterfinals - Tsonga is one of the players who has an outside shot of making the year-end championships, but he'll need really good runs this week and next. His second-round match against Tursunov is one to look forward to, it it comes to pass, as an indicator of Tsonga's chances at making a run and whether or not Tursunov is really back to his old self again.

Fernando Verdasco is currently ninth in the race for the year-end championships, but he hasn't won a match since the U.S. Open. He opens against American qualifier Michael Russell, which is a tricky one but should be winnable. After that, it only gets tougher, as he'll get either Sergiy Stakhovsky or Gilles Simon in the second round, but then things get a bit easier - it'll be either Davydenko or Kohlschreiber, neither of whom have been in great form recently.

The next quarter has two players who are trying to make the ATP tour finals, with Youzhny and Ferrer both vying for spots. The Russian is in a bit of trouble, having played through to the final in St. Petersburg and then needing to travel before play starts up, but his section isn't too tricky until he might find himself up against Ferrer in the quarters. The only other potential spoilers in that section are Arnaud clement and (maybe) Teymuraz Gabashvili, though Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who beat Nadal during the Asian swing, opens against Ferrer, as well.

The last quarter has Gael Monfils and Robing Soderling, as well as Stan Wawrinka and Nicolas Almagro. Lots of heavy hitting in this section, for sure. Any of those four guys could find their way through to the semifinals, but each of them has a relatively easy first round. There's no shortage of fireworks in this draw, as you can see.

But there may actually be even more in Basel, if you can believe it. Of course, Roger Federer is the top seed, and he opens against young Ukrainian player Alexandr Dolgopolov. And after that, he gets either Tipsarevic or Istomin. Now none of those guys are top players, but they all have the potential to hit with heavyweights on any given day. In the quarters, he may get either Stepanek or (more likely) Jurgen Melzer. Fed has made the final here for the past four years, and I wouldn't be shocked if he made a run again.

The player most likely to stand in his way (or at least hope to) is probably Andy Roddick, who is hoping he's fully recovered from the injury that shortened his campaign during the Asian swing. He opens against Sam Querrey, who has only won a single match since the U.S. Open, but he did beat Roddick the last time they played. After that, Roddick could play either Belgian vet Xavier Malisse or up-and-coming big hitter Andry Golubev. The other section of Roddick's quarter may have Cilic as the top seed, but he hasn't been playing like it. You have to think that the favorite to get through to be Roddick's quarterfinal opponent (assuming he lives up to his seeding) is David Nalbandian.

The third quarter in Basel has Ljubicic, last week's losing finalist in Montpellier, Florian Mayer, who lost to Federer in the Stockholm final, Troicki, who just won his first career title, and Michael Berrer, who was a semifinalist in Vienna. As if that wasn't enough, it also has Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych. The Czech player is next in line to qualify for the year-end championships, but he also is in pretty poor form, since he hasn't won more than two consecutive matches since he lost in the Wimbledon final. He doesn't need many wins to secure his spot in the finals, but he's going to need a couple this week and next in order not to slide out of the top eight. He gets lucky loser Tobias Kamke as a first round, which is about as good as he could hope for. Gasquet in the second round is a trickier ask...

The final quarter of the draw has what could be the most appetizing first-round match of the week. Second-seed Novak Djokovic opens against Ernests Gulbis, which would have been a blockbuster in the Spring, but Ernests has been having trouble recently, while Djokovic has been playing some of his best tennis. I think the Djokovic may have more trouble with his second round match against (in all likelihood) Jarkko Nieminen, who has been enjoying a rich vein of form at the end of the season. Meanwhile, he could get John Isner in the quarterfinals, if Isner can get past French net rusher Michael Llodra. That should be a fun one to see, too.

As you can see, there's a lot going on this week, and a lot on the line for some of the players involved. I'm excited to see how it plays out!

Week 43 Semifinals

There was one big piece of news in the tennis world, today: the shocking retirement of Elena Dementieva, who played her last WTA match against Francesca Schiavone and lost. It's really a shame to see her go, but on one level, I can understand - her year was plagued with injuries, and at age 29, it's possible that her lingering conditions are only going to get worse, not better, as time goes on. It also sounded like she was interested in settling down and having a baby, which is completely understandable. Finally, she didn't want to slide down in the rankings and be struggling to qualify for entry into tournaments. All of this is commendable, but I'm still sad to see her go. She was a great player to watch when she was on - even though her serving woes and mental fragility in big moments could also make her bad days tough to endure. Still, she was an absolute class act and had the cleanest ground strokes you could ever hope to see. She'll be missed, and I wish her all the best in her future endeavors. As a player who also seemed to be a fan of the sport, I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed near to the game in some capacity, once she's had a little time away.

While that may have been all that was on people's minds today, there was also some pretty good tennis. Though not in Doha, where none of the matches had any significance regarding who would make it to the semifinals, and they were basically played that way. On the other hand, the quarterfinals of the men's events taking place this week had some excellent action. Nine of the 12 matches went three sets, and three of them ended in decisive-set tiebreaks.

There were some big upsets today. Albert Montanes benefited from Nikolay Davydenko's continued poor run of form, as the Russian lost to the Spaniard in second and third set tiebreaks, having won the first set 6-3. Davy's year is pretty much over, and he's got to be looking to rebuild next season. After he fails to defend his ranking points from the year-end championships last year, his ranking is going to drop like a stone. I'm not sure where he'll end up, but he'll probably be the farthest he's been from the top ten in a long while.

Otherwise, in Monpellier, the favorites came out on top. Monfils ended up being too strong for John Isner. The American took the first set after breaking Monfils in an early moment of lackadaisical play from Monfils, but after that, it was all business. In the end, Monfils returning was stronger than Isner's serving power. The same could not be said for Gilles Simon or Jarkko Nieminen, who both lost to big-serving, big-hitting players as well. Simon stole the second set from JW Tsonga by running away with the tiebreak 7-0, but Tsonga recovered in the third set. His weakest passage of play was in the second set tiebreak, when he just went on walkabout. Very strange from a player with a good record in tiebreaks, generally. Nieminen, on the other hand, lost a very tight third-set tiebreak to Ivan Ljubicic after a pair of calls from the umpire failed to go his way - one a serve from Ljubicic that was probably out by the ump declined to overrule, and another a ball from the Finn that was very close (and farther away from the umpire's chair) which he called out. Tough break for Jarkko, but he's playing well and should be encouraged by how he's finishing the season.

The semifinals here are Ljubicic-Montanes and Monfils-Tsonga. I have to say that I think whoever wins between Monfils and Tsonga will win in the final, no matter who comes through between Ljubicic and Montanes. Both of these guys love playing in France, they're both showmen, and that combined with their natural talent should be enough to get them the championship.

In Vienna, the most anticipated match-up of the day fizzled out, but at least it did so in the way that was preferable for the tournament. Jurgen Melzer automatically advanced when Kohlschreiber withdrew with injury. Surprisingly, he's joined in the semifinals by lucky loser Andreas Haider-Maurer, who demolished second seed Marin Cilic today. It was an impressive performance from the young (well, young in terms of experience) Austrian. He benefited even more when Marcos Baghdatis was surprisingly beaten by German journeyman Michael Berrer. That's a winnable semifinal for Andreas, and if Melzer can get past Nicolas Almagro, we could have an all-Austrian final in Vienna. That would be spectacular for the tournament. I know that I and the tournament organizers will be keeping our fingers crossed for the hometown boys.

Unfortunately, there's no hope for a similar final in St. Petersburg, though one of the semis is an all Russian affair. In fact, that's probably the more important semifinal, as Mikhail Youzhny and Dmitry Tursunov are both experienced players with multiple titles on their belt, while both of their potential opponents in the other semifinal, Mikhail Kukushkin and Ilya Marchenko, are vying for their first tour-level final appearance. I like Youzhny to win this match, but I'm rooting for Tursunov, who is recovering from ankle surgery. He's such a character, it would be fun to have him in the mix again next year.

Still lots of great action yet to come this weekend, as the semifinals in Doha start tomorrow as well. Now things really count, as the elimination matches begin. Clijsters plays Stosur and Zvonareva plays Wozniacki, which are both coincidentally rematches from this year's U.S. Open! All four of these players have been playing exceptional tennis this week, but Zvonareva is the only one who didn't drop a match in round robin play. It's tough to know what to expect tomorrow, but it should be fun to watch.

Week 43 Quarterfinals

While we're in a relatively minor (in terms of importance to the whole year) week for the ATP, but the end-of-year WTA championships in Doha are a very big deal. Up until today, the year-end number one ranking was still up for grabs, with either Caroline Wozniacki or Vera Zvonareva capable of snagging the spot. The first two days of action were relatively uneventful, with six straight set victories. But today, the level of play just skyrocketed, and all three matches featured some of the best play that we've seen all year on the WTA tour. Elena Dementieva upset Sam Stosur in a third set tiebreak, after Elena had been whipped by Wozniacki by the score of 6-1, 6-1. Good showing by Dementieva, even though she was mathematically eliminated from moving past the round robin stage, once Wozniacki came back from dropping the first set to Francesca Schiavone in order to win the second and third by wide margins, even though it still seemed tight. The last match was between Kim Clijsters and Azarenka, and while it was tightly-contested for the first two sets, in the end the heat was too much for the Belarussian, and Azarenka faded in the third. All the same, everyone involved played spectacular tennis today, truly worthy of the importance of the event. I'm encouraged for the next few days of action.

While the stakes weren't quite so high elsewhere, the action was still quite exciting. There were two amazing comebacks at the Open Sud de France, where Nalbandian served for the match twice against Gilles Simon, but still ended up losing. It was less good news for the French when Richard Gasquet dropped a similar sort of lead against Jarkko Nieminen, only to lose in the end. In reward, Simon gets to play JW Tsonga and Nieminen gets Ivan Ljubicic. Really, all of the quarters in France are pretty strong. The other two feature John Isner and Gael Monfils, as well as top seed Davydenko against Albert Montanes. All of those matches could go pretty much either way.

Vienna has the most seeds left standing, which also leads to some interesting matches. Top seed Jurgen Melzer gets Kohlschreiber, Almagro gets Chela (that really seems like a clay-court quarterfinal), Baghdatis gets German Michael Berrer, and Marin Cilic gets the young Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer. I lean towards all four top seeds coming through here, though Haider-Maurer has an outside chance of an upset against Cilic, who has not been in great form. And Kohlschreiber can play well enough to beat almost anybody on the right day. But I know the Austrian crowd wants to see both Melzer and Haider-Maurer through. There's not a lot to be excited about in terms of Austrian tennis, these days.

While there are only three seeds left in St. Petersburg, the remaining field is probably the weakest. Top seed Mikhail Youzhny was tested by the young Russian player Donskoy, but he came through in the end. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Donskoy again, though. He gets Victor Hanescu in the quarters, which should be a fairly straightforward win since they're not on clay. The best quarterfinal is probably between two players on opposite ends of their careers - Dmitry Tursunov is on the comeback trail from ankle surgery, while Dolgopolov is just trying to establish himself as a contender for these sorts of tournaments. In the other quarters, Tipsarevic faces Kukushkin and Becker faces Marchenko. I like Becker and Tipsy in those matches.

WTA Doha Preview

Tomorrow, the women's year-end championship tournament starts in Doha. This is going to be an interesting tournament, because a number of the big-name players aren't present: Maria Sharapova, Justine Henin, and both Williams sisters are not present. With the draws that we're seeing, combined with the odd sorts of form that the players involved have been exhibiting at the end of the year, this is really going to be a toss-up in terms of who comes out on top. It's also an open question as to what level of tennis we can expect this week. It should be interesting to see.

The first group, despite having Caroline Wozniacki, the current world number one, is arguably the weaker group. While she is an excellent player, "Sunshine" Wozniacki does not have a very good record against the other top players in the game, and those are the only ones she's going to be facing this week. Her group also has French Open champion Francesca Schiavone and Sam Stosur - who have pretty much sat out the second half of the season, considering their lack of results since the French Open. Stosur did look sharp at the U.S. Open, where she lost a match to Kim Clijsters in the quarters that she probably should have won, but neither one has ever played in the year-end championships before. The fourth player in that group is Elena Dementieva, who is appearing here for the 10th time, but her record here is abysmal, as she's gone 6-18. It's tough to pick out of this group - all four players have their reasons to choke, so I don't know if I can call who's going to come through.

On the other side, things are a bit tougher. Kim Clijsters is the only player to have won the year-end championships before, and she's done it twice! Vera Zvonareva, also in this group, has made it to the final before, which is something of an achievement. But Vera has shown she still has a tendency to choke in pressure situations, so it's tough to back her to go all the way. Jelena Jankovic has ended her year pretty poorly, as she hasn't even made the quarterfinals in any event since the French Open. The fourth player in this group, Victoria Azarenka, is something of a wildcard. She played some excellent tennis in winning the last tournament of the year, but she didn't have to play anyone of consequence on the way. She could make some noise, though.

I have no real sense of how this tournament could play out - I think it's just about as likely that we'll get an established player like Kim Clijsters tearing through her opponents and winning the title as a relatively undistinguished player showing her best stuff. It should be fun to watch in the meantime, but I can't make any predictions.

Week 42 Wrap-up and Week 43 Preview

Things went about as expected in the finals this week. Roger Federer handled a spirited challenge from German Florian Mayer without too much difficulty, equaling Pete Sampras's record of total titles won in the process, while Viktor Troicki managed to outlast a frustrated Marcos Baghdatis to claim his maiden title in Moscow. Baggy got extremely upset with some questionable line calls, even going so far as to spit at an line judge. Now he's justified in getting upset, but that's just not okay. Here's hoping that Moscow will have Hawkeye next year, and this won't be a problem.

As for Federer, kudos for reaching that milestone in your career, but with the sort of field he had to deal with in Stockholm, coupled with underperforming fellow seeds, it would have been pretty sad if he couldn't clinch this one. Florian Mayer in the final? Can't really ask for a better opponent when you're going for a record like that. But it also moves Federer squarely into second place in terms of matches won over the course of the year, even though he's still 14 match wins behind Nadal, and four titles, as well.

Looking ahead to next week, the fields are a little bit sparser. We're in the home stretch of the tournament calendar now, with only three weeks of regular action left in the season. So some players are scrambling to get all the action they can, trying to accumulate points and prize moeny before the off-season, while others are waiting to make a big push at next week's pair of 500 tournaments or the season-ending Masters in Paris. Still others have basically checked out already, either officially (Juan Martin Del Potro has called it quits for this season, but I can't blame him - more time to recover from surgery is a good thing) or unofficially. If you see some players just going through the motions to avoid fines or pick up appearance fees, you can probably guess what's going on.

There's only one top ten player in action: Mikhail Youzhny, currently world number 9, is the top seed in St. Petersburg, where the rest of the field is not anything to get excited about. The second seed is Sergiy Stakhovsky, ranked #35 in the world. If he's healthy, Youzhny has no reason not to go deep at this tournament, as he shouldn't face anyone but qualifiers, wildcards, or clay-court specialists before the semifinals. After that, things can get a bit more interesting - last week's champion Troicki is in the draw, as is Dolgopolov and wildcard Tursunov. This may be his best chance this year to have a good run and get some momentum before the end of the season.

The bottom half of the draw in St. Petersburg is a who's-who of second-tier Eastern European tennis players. There are a bunch of guys who just on the verge of reaching the top of the game, but haven't been able to do it yet: Gabashvili, Tipsarevic, Istomin, Stakhovsky, and Igor Andreev. Should be fun to see them in action, as well as Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Paul-Henri Mathieu. Any number of people could make it out of this half of the draw.

The biggest news of the week is actually the return of former world number one Thomas Muster, who's been given a wildcard into the Bank Austria Tennis Trophy tournament. The 43-year old winner of the 1995 French Open has been trying to make a comeback on the challenger circuit this year, but he's gone 1-6 in matches at that level. He drew fifth-seed Ernests Gulbis in the first round, and that's just an entirely different level of competition. It's an ill-advised comeback attempt, all around, and while I wish him well, I don't give him much of a shot. Head on over to the Champions tour if you're itching for match player, Mr. Muster.

The draw in Vienna is moderately strong, with four players from the top 20, and both of last week's losing finalists. Baghdatis and Florian Mayer could play in the second round, in fact. Another potentially good second-round match is James Blake and top Austrian player Jurgen Melzer. Marin Cilic is also in town, as well as Phillip Kohlschreiber and Nicolas Almagro. Some good players here in Vienna, and there could be late round fireworks, if people live up to their seedings.

The situation is much the same Montpellier, which has five top 20 players but nobody in the top 10. Nikolay Davydenko is the top seed, but with the form he's in, he's nowhere near the favorites to win the tournament, even with a favorable draw. The draw also features Tsonga, Monfils, Llodra, Gasquet, Gilles Simon, Nicolas Mahut (who won a challenger today against Bulgarian up-and-comer Grigor Dimitrov without breaking serve) and Arnaud Clement make up a strong French contingent. But don't count out David Nalbandian, Ivan Ljubicic, or John Isner. Jarkko Nieminen, who played some excellent tennis in Stockholm, is also lurking in the draw.

It's certainly not a likely outcome, but there's an outside chance of a semifinal rematch between Isner and Mahut, which would be great publicity if it did come to pass. Still, I don't think I see it happening.

Week 42 Finals

In each tournament taking place this week, we had easy semifinal and one extremely close one. Federer and Troicki were the easy winners, over Ljubicic and Cuevas, as expected. Ljubicic just couldn't do anything to hurt Federer, and once he lost the first set (a tight one, admittedly) in a tiebreak, it was essentially over. Troicki must have appreciated finding a clay-court specialist ranked around 50 in the world in the semifinals, and he took advantage of the opportunity, winning 6-3, 6-3.

The other pair of matches were much tighter. In Stockholm, Jarkko Nieminen and Florian Mayer were playing for the privilege of losing to Roger Federer in the final, and I must admit that I expected Nieminen to come out ahead in that one. I've seen Mayer play some great tennis for patches, but I haven't seen him put together a week as strong as this. He's no slouch - he was the ATP newcomer of the year in 2004, between Rafael Nadal and Gael Monfils. Yeah, that award has about a 50% success ratio. And this is his third ATP final, but it is his first on hard courts, as the other two were on clay. And to be facing Roger Federer in the final? That's a big ask. The only thing he may have going for him is the fact that nobody - Federer included - gives him any chance of winning, so if he can come out in good form, he may be able to surprise the Swiss number one. But it does make sense that he's getting 10:1 odds to win the match.

In Moscow, Istomin had Baghdatis on the ropes. If I'm not mistaken, he was up a double break in the third and decisive set, only to stumble at the finish line and allow Baggy a chance to come back and take the match in a tiebreak. That's got to be disheartening for the top Uzbek player, but an impressive comeback from the Cypriot. That should make the final interesting - Troicki may be the underdog, but he's got to be fresher coming in, considering his easier semifinal match. That one could go either way - if you want to see a competitive match, rather than a pure display of skill, I suggest catching the final in Moscow, rather the Federer-Mayer final, which will be surprising if it turns out to be close.

Week 42 Semifinals

With eight players left in the two tournaments we have going on this week, there are two interesting stories to look at. The first is whether anyone can stop Roger Federer in Stockholm. Honestly, the odds are not great at this point. Federer looked beatable in the first set against compatriot Wawrinka, who came out absolutely on fire but couldn't keep up that level of play, and faded in the second and third sets, while Federer has started at less than his best, only to raise his game and come through in the end. The only other player who had a shot at beating Fed was second seed Robin Soderling, who at least has a win over Federer this year - but he was beaten by Florian Mayer, who eked out a tight first set and then ran away with the second, as a frustrated Soderling started spraying errors.

Fed still has to play Ivan Ljubicic in the semis, but Ljubicic hasn't beaten Federer since 2003, and that's quite a while ago. The other semifinalist, Jarkko Nieminen, is 0-11 against the Fed. Mayer also doesn't have a win against the former world number one. So things are looking good for Roger to clinch the title in Stockholm.

In Moscow, the story is quite different - the seeds have been dropping like flies, and only one is left. Marcos Baghdatis is also the only player left of the four semifinalists who has already won an ATP title. The other three players have yet to take one, so it will be interesting to see whether Baggy can frustrate them, or if we'll have a first-time winner this week. I think the least likely contender is probably Pablo Cuevas. He's a fine player, but this isn't his best surface. When he wins a title, I expect it will be on clay.

As for the other two players, this could be their week. Denis Istomin and Viktor Troicki are both extremely capable players on this surface, and it's only a matter of time before they each win titles. Istomin made a final this year, and lost a tight match to Sergiy Stakhovsky, while Troicki has made two finals before, even though he hasn't made one this year. Both players have showed flashes of brilliance that suggest to me that they could be bound for the top 20, if they could just work on their consistency. Both players lost excellent matches to Nadal in the past month - and even playing Nadal tough when he's on his game is an accomplishment. I'd actually like to see Istomin-Troicki in the final, but we'll just have to wait and see how it shakes out.

Week 42 Quarterfinals

The big news of the week so far is that Roger Federer played his 900th ATP-level match on Wednesday, as he brutalized poor American Taylor Dent in under an hour. He's showing no signs of slowing, and barring an injury Other than that, the other interesting story of the week has been the mass exodus of seeds from both Moscow and Stockholm. Of the sixteen seeded players, only six have made it to the quarterfinal round. And eight of those players had a first-round bye.

Three of the seeded players to crash out are still in the running for the ATP year-end finals - Mikhail Youzhny withdrew with illness, while Tomas Berdych was bested in a fairly straightforward match with the flying Finn Jarkko Nieminen, and JW Tsonga was just a bit too error-prone against Viktor Troicki. He lost the second set on a fairly lucky net cord against him on break point, but he had his chances in the third set, and when the big points came up, he just couldn't find the court.

Of the remaining seeds, two of them are facing off tomorrow. Roger Federer takes on Stan Wawrinka, which has the potential to be an interesting match. Fed leads the head to head 5-1, but Wawrinka suggested that he may be a new player during the U.S. Open. He should have had enough time to recover from playing his heart out in Flushing and then in the Davis Cup playoff, so this will be an interesting test to see if new coach Peter Lundgren has really had an effect on the number two Swiss.

Hometown boy Robin Soderling gets German Florian Mayer in the quarters, and he should have a fairly easy win - Mayer can be a good player, but he isn't anywhere near consistent enough from point to point and match to match to handle the kind of player that Soderling has become. And Ivan Ljubicic gets Croatian qualifier Ivan Dodig, which should be a win for the veteran. The other quarterfinal in Stockholm is actually perhaps the most interesting, as it features a pair of veteran players on the comeback trail - James Blake and aforementioned Finn. Blake has had a much worse year (his ranking is 90 points Nieminen's) but he also leads the head-to-head 6-0. Nieminen is an exceptional mover and counter-puncher, while Blake can hit through just about anybody when he's on his game. Blake also has a great record at this tournament, so this one could be fun to watch. A great contrast in styles from two very experienced and interesting players.

The picture is even bleaker for the seeds in Moscow - and for the hometown boys as well! After Youzhny pulled out of the tournament, Davydenko lost in the first round to Pablo Cuevas, which is a match that last year's Davydenko never would have come close to losing. The only Russian left in the draw is Igor Kunitsyn, who faces off against up-and-coming Uzbek Denis Istomin. Another player in the same kind of career position is Alexandr Dolgopolov, who plays Marcos Baghdatis in the quarterfinals.

Baggy is one of the two remaining seeds in Moscow, the other being Radek Stepanek, who faces Pablo Cuevas. Neither Stepanek nor Baghdatis has had the kind of season that they would have hoped for, after great starts to the season. And Baghdatis is defending points from winning this championship last year - both could use deep runs or even a win here. The last quarterfinal is between Viktor Troicki and Horacio Zeballos. The Argentine is best on clay, and based on what I've seen from him, he always will be, while Troicki is starting to show levels of his game that I haven't seen before. He's still having problems closing out matches - see both Nadal and Djokovic in the past month - but he's played well enough to beat both of them.

We'll see if the seed exodus continues this week - we could have some relative newcomers lifting trophies come Sunday!

Shanghai Wrap-Up and Week 42 Preview

I have to admit, that was something of a surprising result. The final in Shanghai featured Andy Murray and Roger Federer, both of whom were in spectacular form coming in to the final. The pair had played some very close matches, so it was reasonable to expect another tight affair. Surprisingly, the match was something of a blowout. Even more surprising, the winner was Andy Murray - the other times their matches ended with lopsided results, it was a straightforward victory for Federer.

But this time, Murray was on the top of his game while Federer was a little bit off. He may have been a bit unlucky in the beginning of the second set, when a bad call may have cost him a point that he was forced to replay. But he wasn't unlucky on his second try, when he sailed a forehand wide under no particular pressure. Murray played some great tennis - no question about that, but Federer made too many errors on the big points.

Looking ahead to next week, there are a pair of tournaments to look at - one in Moscow and one in Stockholm. It's an odd week for tennis, because five of the world's top ten players are in action, but the 8th seed in both tournaments is ranked outside the top 35. So while there are some players to watch, the majority of the players in action are not at the top of the game just now.

That isn't to say that there aren't good matches in the early going - in Moscow, wildcard Dmitry Tursunov takes on Viktor Troicki, which should be an exciting match for the home crowd. And in Stockholm, James Blake (also in on a wildcard) faces the 7th seed Thomaz Bellucci. Those are big matches for both of these players, who are trying to make comebacks after injury layoffs. Neither one is going to be easy.

It will be interesting to see how these draws shake out - Federer really ought to win in Stockholm, and will have almost no excuse if he can't make it through the draw. The second seed is Robin Soderling, who got brutally thrashed by Federer just this last week, winning only a pair of games. On the other hand, the top seed in Moscow is on a terrible run of form. If he can put together a good week, it will really be a turnaround. He has a good chance, without too many tough opponents waiting in his way. The later stages of the tournament could get tricky, though.

Shanghai Masters Final

The finals have been set for the Shanghai Masters, and it's an exciting match. I must admit that - for the most part - this tournament has been something of a bust, as a majority of the highly-anticipated match-ups either failed to happen or fizzled out when they did. Even the Djokovic-Federer semifinal, a rematch of that astounding match from the U.S. Open, failed to provide much excitement. Here's hoping that the final will be a good match - it certainly has the pedigree for it.

The record between Federer and Murray should be familiar to most tennis fans. Murray is one of the very few players who has a winning record against Roger, though it's getting tighter. Before the summer hardcourt swing, Federer had won the last three times they'd met. That was when Murray beat Federer in the Toronto Masters final. At the moment, their record stands with Murray ahead 7-5.

Coming into the final, neither player has lost a set this week. Murray hasn't even been closer than 6-4, while Federer has at least gone 7-5 in the first set against Djokovic. On the other hand, the Swiss master has faced a significantly higher caliber of opponent than Murray had to get through to make it here. He had to beat John Isner, Robin Soderling, and Novak Djokovic, while Murray's toughest test was JW Tsonga, who looked to be troubled by a lingering injury. What isn't clear, though, is how their different paths will affect the result.

It's possible that Murray, who has been able to cruise straight through to the final, will be fresh and ready to face Federer. Roger's game shouldn't be a surprise to him anymore, after twelve previous encounters. On the other hand, the fact that he hasn't faced anyone who could give him a challenge up to this point might work against him, as the sudden rise in the quality of tennis he'll be up against could be difficult to adjust to.

Based purely on form, it's tough to bet against Federer, but Andy Murray is one of the best players on tour when it comes to frustrating an opponent, and he's beaten Federer in a grand slam final already this year. I'm looking forward to see how this turns out - it's not the most significant match of the year, but it's a big one for Federer, who says he can still dominate the tour the way he has in the past, and if he can tear through the field here in Shanghai, I'm pretty much inclined to believe him.

Shanghai Masters Quarterfinals

Surprisingly, this week in Shanghai has not really turned out to be about the World Tour Finals contenders - the majority of them have come out playing pretty atrocious tennis, at a time when they need to bring their A games. Almagro, Cilic, Youzhny, and Verdasco failed to win a match this week. Berdych won only one before he was upset by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (who is on a real tear, by the way) who Andy Roddick was dominating before the American aggravated an injury to his thigh muscle. For the record, this is Roddick's third trip to Shanghai, and he's been injured in all three trips. The prior two ended his season, but he's hoping that he'll be able to come back and still qualify for the year-end championships in London. For what it's worth, Roddick was playing really good tennis in this Asian swing before he got injured.

The two players who are showing up for the Shanghai Masters are Jurgen Melzer, who got the biggest win of his career in an upset of Nadal yesterday, and JW Tsonga, who is playing just his second tournament back since Wimbledon, but is through to the quarters all the same. Both guys need deep runs here to bolster their odds of making it to London, and while Tsonga has his work cut out for him - he faces Andy Murray tonight - Melzer should see his way through the semis, as he'll be happy to find himself facing Juan Monaco instead of Davydenko or Verdasco. All credit to Melzer for his victory, but the fact is if you want to beat Nadal, it's best to get him on a hard court, late in the season.

I like Murray against Tsonga, as the Scot has owned the Frenchman recently, and Tsonga is still shaking the rust off. JW's lone win against Murray was in the first round of the Aussie open when he made his shocking run to the final, and he hasn't really had that kind of form recently. It should be a fun match though, and since it's the first one on, I'll probably stay up to watch it.

The other exciting match-up is another round in the Federer-Soderling battle. But come on, Federer is still 13-1 against the Swede, and that one loss almost went the other way. I like Federer to get through to the semis here, as well. If it's raining and they have to close the roof, that could help Soderling, as the wind can mess with his toss and big groundstrokes. But even with that much help, it shouldn't make a difference.

The other two quarterfinals feature some surprising contenders - Jurgen Melzer and Juan Monaco, which could go either way but ought to go Melzer's way, as the in-form player. In the other quarter, Novak Djokovic faces Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who is playing the best tennis of his career, but his run will end against Novak tonight.

Week 40 Wrap-up and Shangai Masters Preview

Even though we're through with play on Sunday, the action from week 40 is not quite finished. The final in Tokyo has concluded as one might have expected, with Nadal just too strong for Monfils, but in Beijing, rain has kept Djokovic and Ferrer from playing out their match. Djokovic is already up a break by the fourth game, though, so when play resumes on Monday, it seems like he'll have the advantage.

It wasn't the most exciting week for this pair of Asian ATP 500 events, but there were some absolutely amazing matches. Roddick-Monfils and Nadal-Troicki were two of the best, most exciting matches that I've seen for the last few months. This was a good week for Troicki, who has a fair amount of talent but hasn't really broken through with any big wins. He almost had a career-changing victory over Nadal, but he couldn't quite pull it off. He had already beaten Melzer in a third-set tiebreak in the previous round, so here's hoping he can continue playing that way and build off a very strong week, even if he did completely choke when he had the match on his racket.

The week in Beijing wasn't quite as exciting, but it was surprising to see the second, third, and fourth seeds put up weak efforts in their quarterfinal losses. Murray, Soderling, and Davydenko all failed to win a set in that round. Good show from Djokovic and Ferrer, but all of those other guys are still trying to qualify for the end-of-year championships, and the opportunities to wrap up those points are getting scarcer.

Next week in Shanghai, trying to rack up points in order to qualify for London will be the focus, for a lot of these players. It's really late in the season for only three of the eight spots to be wrapped up - Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer are all in, which isn't a shock. Murray and Soderling are in very good shape, with Berdych in a moderately safe position, while Roddick and Verdasco are currently in the 7th and 8th spots, but are in no way secure in their spots. One or both of them will probably even drop this week, as Ferrer was sitting in 9th, but getting to the final in Beijing (at least, maybe even winning) will help his chances immensely.

One of the players with a chance of qualifying for the year-end championships is already out of Shanghai, as Nicolas Almagro fell in a Sunday first-round match to Alexandr Dolgopolov - it was another third set tiebreak, which is a fine way to start off the week. I'll take a look at what other action you can expect as I usually do, going quarter by quarter.

Nadal, as the top seed and recent champion in Tokyo, isn't going to have it easy this week. He gets a bye in the first round, but then he'll have to face either Gilles Simon or Stan Wawrinka, who is playing his first ATP tournament since the U.S. Open, where he played some incredible tennis but wore himself out in the process. We'll see if he can continue his great under new coach Peter Lundgren. And after that, he'll have either Jurgen Melzer, Mardy Fish, or Denis Istomin. The other half of Nadal's quarter is not quite so loaded - Davydenko could potentiall be challenged by Sergiy Stakhovsky, but I'll be shocked if Verdasco doesn't get through de Bakker and Monaco, which will help his London push. Verdasco-Davydenko should be a good match, if both get that far, and then the winner will get Nadal (or his conqueror) in the quarters.

The second quarter belongs to Andy Murray, who has not been on a great run since he won one of the Summer hardcourt Masters titles. He'll probably open against Radek Stepanek in the second round, and then he gets either Chardy, Baghdatis, or Dolgopolov. He doesn't need to win the tournament to secure his place in London - he just needs to win a couple rounds here, and I'll be shocked if he doesn't. The bottom half of his quarter has Mikhail Youzhny, as well as Sam Querrey and Michael Berrer (which isn't a bad first-round match) but the real wildcard is JW Tsonga, back from an injury layoff, who opens against Feliciano Lopez. Murray's going to have to really slump to not come through this section, though.

The third quarter is third-seed Roger Federer's (I know, can you believe it?) and his half is pretty easy, with one potential exception. It's likely that Fed's first round match will be against John Isner, and without any match play to get used to the conditions, that could be a tough one. Isner would have to play (and serve) at his absolute max to make it a match, but it's an outside possibility. Beyond that, I don't see Seppi, Yen-Hsun Lu, or a slumping Marin Cilic giving him any trouble. The other half of his section is a a bit tougher, though. Robin Soderling is there, and he'll open against either Tipsarevic or Golubev. Ferrer beat Soderling last week, and he's in this section, but with almost no rest between tournaments, it's going to be a tough ask to play Djokovic in a final today and (in all likelihood) Llodra in a first round tomorrow, in an entirely different city.

The last quarter is Djokovic's, but he's going to be in a similar situation to Ferrer, if not quite as bad, since he has a first-round bye. He'll probably open against Ljubicic, and that could be a tricky match, but it probably won't be if you were looking at the Croat's recent form. Djoker's section has one of the best first-rounders, between Richard Gasquet and Ernests Gulbis - call it "the battle of wasted talent." The winner of that one will most likely get Monfils, and then that winner gets Djokovic. That's pretty exciting, but I think the other half of this section is even better. Roddick and Berdych are the seeds, and both are vying for places in the year-end championships. Roddick opens against Kohlschreiber, then gets a relatively easy match against either Schwank or Garcia-Lopez, and neither of them are at their best on hard-courts, but then Roddick and Berdych will face off, assuming Berdych can beat Robredo (he probably can). That will be an essential match for both of these players' end-of-year fortunes.

There was a lull after the U.S. Open, but things are starting to heat up again, and this is the most exciting end-of-year championship qualifying season that I can recall. Usually, there are only two or at most three spots left to determine at this point in the season, not five. Plenty of players with a lot to gain (and lose) in this week's action.

Week 40 Quarterfinals

We're through the first two rounds in this week of dueling Asian ATP 500 tournaments, and things are just starting to heat up. Of the eight matches taking place today, six of them are ones that you wouldn't be surprised to see in a Grand Slam quarterfinal, rather than a relatively low-tier tournament such as these.

In Tokyo, the field was slightly weaker from the beginning, and that's reflected in the line-up we have in store for today. Rafael Nadal, who handled the young Canadian player Milos Raonic fairly easily yesterday - will face a much different opponent today. Dmitry Tursunov is a former top-20 player who nearly vanished from the game. He's been 1-5 on the year before this week, when he notched two very nice wins over Richard Gasquet and his own doubles partner Ernests Gulbis. He's a great personality, so I'm excited to see him playing well again, but his run ends here against Nadal. Still, his ranking should jump quite a bit next week, considering he's at 432 just now.

The second quarterfinal features Viktor Troicki, who won a tough match against Jurgen Melzer in the last round, against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, last week's titlist in Bangkok. He's playing spectacular tennis and could get a worn out Troicki, so I think we're heading for a rematch between Nadal and his countryman in the semifinals. That would be exciting to see.

Two more veterans will face each other in the third quarterfinal - and they're also both in the process of coming back from injury layoffs. Jarkko Nieminen, a steady, completely un-flashy baseliner from Finland will face off against mercurial, net-rushing, recently-married Radek Stepanek. It will be an interesting contrast in styles, and Nieminen has been playing quite well, coming off a final last week. This one could go either way.

The last and best quarterfinal in Tokyo is between Andy Roddick and Gael Monfils. This is an interesting match because both players tend to play more defensive than they really should - and Monfils definitely based his service motion off Andy Roddick's (just watch it - the only difference is Gael doesn't step up to the line with his back foot). Monfils leads in their head-to-head, so this could go either way. I'm looking forward to it.

In Beijing, on the other hand, all four of these matches are just spectacular. Every one could easily have been a final any other week of the year. Top seed Novak Djokovic plays Gilles Simon, who gutted out a tough win against Michael Berrer in the last round. Djoker, on the other hand, got a walkover from Mardy Fish. It's likely that he'll be the fresher player and come out on top - but it could also be that he could have used more time on court, since beating a Chinese wildcard in the first round doesn't really constitute much useful experience.

In the next match, Nikolay Davydenko faces big John Isner. This is definitely a contrast in styles. Normally, I'd say that Davydenko's return would be too much for Isner's serving prowess, but Davydenko has not been in his best form since he came back from injury, and has just been hemorrhaging ranking points this Fall. This could be a win for Isner, but it won't be easy. Both guys played opponents with similar styles in the last round - Isner beat Kohlschreiber while Davydenko bested Cilic. They should each be primed for a good match.

The bottom half has David Ferrer playing Robin Soderling, which is a really great match on paper - but unfortunately for Ferrer, he's gotten owned by Soderling in the past. Robin leads the head-to-head 7-2, and both those wins were on clay. It could be a good match - they play each other tough, most of the time - but the conditions favor Soderling, so I like his odds.

The final match is between Ivan Ljubicic and Andy Murray. Ivan won a Masters event earlier in the year and has not made much noise since. On the other hand, Murray hasn't been playing up to his standards recently - he won a summer hardcourt Masters title, but like his opponent today, has otherwise been less successful than he would prefer. Their last match was a really good one, so I'm hoping this one will be fun as well.

Week 39 Review and Week 40 Preview

The last week of tennis actually turned out to be pretty exciting - I'm sorry I wasn't around to cover it more while it was actually going on. I'll do a quick recap, though.

In Thailand, it looked like things were going to be pretty boring. All of the top contenders dropped, one by one. Verdasco looked sluggish in his loss to Benjamin Becker, as did Gulbis to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Del Potro and Melzer were beaten by players who had great days, Olivier Rochus and Jarkko Nieminen, in particular. Nieminen had also beaten Viktor Troicki, which is a pretty good pair of scalps for the top Finn. With all of these guys gone, it looked like Rafael Nadal would cruise to the title. He was the only seed to make the semifinals, after all.

But then something unusual happened. In his match against fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Nadal managed to do something I've never seen anyone do, much less him. He lost 24 of 26 break point chances in the match. Garcia-Lopez won the second set in the tiebreak and managed one break in the third set to take the match. It was a pretty stunning performance from Garcia-Lopez, who followed it up with a win over Jarkko Nieminen in the final. He had a great week as well, but Guillermo was riding high after that incredibly gutsy performance against Nadal. This was a great week for these two vets, who between the two of them beat five of the eight seeds in the draw. Both of them jump into the top 50 in the rankings this week, as well.

In Malaysia, there were quite a few stories to pay attention to over the course of the week. Davydenko's slide continues while another Russian is finally back on the rise when Nikolay lost in his first match to Igor Andreev. Andreev also beat one of the other interesting stories of the tournament, as young Canadian player beat Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round before he went out. Keep an eye out for Raonic. Andreev eventually lost to a third Russian, Mikhail Youzhny - and I predict that he's going to be the top Russian player in the game, in not too long. The best match on that side of the draw was Youzhny over Baghdatis, which went for two close sets before the Russian closed out the Cypriot with relative ease in the third.

On the other side of the draw, the best match-up was between David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych, which also went three sets, and the eventual winner (Ferrer) had to come back from a set down to do it. But while Youzhny was able to build on his win, the Spaniard seemed to be tired from his tough victory over this year's Wimbledon finalist, and he fell to Andrey Golubev. Now Golubev had just notched an impressive win over top seed Robin Soderling. The Kazakh player actually won nine sets in a row before Youzhny came back in the final and beat him in a third-set tiebreak. Despite not quite being able to close the deal, this was a great week for Golubev. I love his game, and I think we'll see him in the top ten at some point soon. And credit to Youzhny as well. Great performances from both guys.

Meanwhile, we're getting closer to the mandatory Masters event in Shanghai, so the tournament draws are getting more and more stacked in preparation. The two 500 events taking place this week in Beijing and Tokyo have 18 of the world's top 20 players in action. The only two missing are both Swiss: Federer and Wawrinka. In Japan, Nadal is the top seed, but the rest of the draw is not as strong. In China, we have seven of the world's top ten players, which is just unbelievable. I'll look at the Tokyo draw, first.

In addition to Nadal's presence, the other noteworthy thing about this tournament is that it marks JW Tsonga's return to action and will be his first tournament played since Wimbledon. He has a tough opening round against last week's finalist in Thailand, Jarkko Nieminen, but that's far from the best opening match-up you'll see thsi week. Eighth-seeded Michael Llodra gets Marco Chiudinelli (ironically, the top Swiss player in action this week), Viktor Troicki plays home-town hope Kei Nishikori, Ernests Gulbis gets former top-tenner Dmitry Tursunov, Richard Gasquet plays Thiemo de Bakker, and Juan Martin Del Potro gets Feliciano Lopez! That match is actually in progress now, and I am upset that I can't find any streaming coverage of it.

Looking ahead a bit, Nadal could get Milos Raonic in the second round, which could be interesting. If Nishikori wins his first round, he could play Jurgen Melzer next, which is a stern challenge for the Japanese 20-year old. It would be great to see Michael Llodra play Radek Stepanek in the second round, as these guys are two fun, veteran players who love to serve and volley. That would be like old-school tennis! Also keep an eye out for a potential match-up between Roddick and Monfils. There are a lot of players who can make noise in this draw, so it's tough to know just how it will shake out. Roddick needs a good run, to try to get his year back on track and finish strong. He said he's 100% healthy again, which is what he'll need to be against this level of competition.

But that group of first-round match-ups is nothing compared to the smorgasbord you'll find in Beijing. Here's the first-round matches I find particularly exciting: Fish-Tipsarev, Querrey-Simon, Cilic-Bellucci, Kohlschreiber-Verdasco, Istomin-Ferrer, Soderling-Robredo, Ljubicic-Youzhny, and Dolgopolov-Baghdatis. I mean, are you kidding? That's an all-star line-up of top players for a 32-player draw. And by the second round, the possibilities are just too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say I'll be watching this tournament with a great deal of excitement.

We'll see what the week brings! It's getting pretty late in the year, and only three of the top eight players have sealed their passage into the year-end tournament. The race is getting tight, now.