Barcelona Quarterfinals

We're down to the last eight in Barcelona, and the field looks almost the way you'd expect at this stage. With Nadal out of the draw, it's actually interesting to see who might make it through to the finish. There have been a handful of upsets, and the remaining match-ups are mostly good.

The only one that I think will probably be uneven is the only match-up featuring a real pretender. Second seed Robin Soderling faces Eduardo Schwank, who had a good win over Fabio Fognini in the first round, but then beat a hobbled Hewitt and lucky loser Ivan Navarro. Expect the Swede to do well in that match. Schwank is only a few weeks removed from being fined for failing to give his best effort against Juan Ignacio Chela in Houston, which doesn't help his chances here.

The other three matches could all be competitive. While everyone was expecting a rematch from last week between Tsonga and Ferrero, young Danish spoiler Thiemo De Bakker upset the player with the most wins on clay this year, winning the first and third sets of his match against Ferrero in tiebreaks. Big win for De Bakker. Against Tsonga, he'll also have a tough time, but this is his favorite surface, and he may be ready to make his move.

The other two matches both feature young guns against seasoned veterans, as well. Ernests Gulbis has had an easy road to the quarterfinals, as both of the seeds in his section were upset before Gulbis in turn beat their vanquishers. He now faces Fernando Verdasco. Gulbis is still trying to build off the momentum he should have gained by winning his first title in Del Ray Beach and to recapture the magic during his breakout run at the French Open two years ago. A deep run here could do the trick.

The last match-up is between two players who have already demonstrated their bona fides on the crushed brick. David Ferrer and Tomaz Bellucci are playing for what would have been Nadal's semifinal spot, so they know what a chance they've been given. Ferrer won their only meeting, earlier this year, and I favor him again, but Bellucci has a shot.

Everyone left in the draw knows that they dodged a freight train with Nadal's withdrawal, so expect everyone to be eager to take advantage of this unexpected chance to win a title. And everyone left has been hot. Of the eight players left in the draw, only Tsonga, Schwank, and De Bakker have not already won a title this year. So this is a tough field to get through.

Week 5 Wrap-up and Week 6 Preview

Well, there were certainly a handful of surprise finalists in last week's tournaments, and some surprise winners as a result. In Johannesburg, top seeds Monfils and Ferrer both lost in the semis, leaving the surprising final match-up of Lopez and Stephane Robert. The more experienced player won this one, as Lopez took the second title of his career. His previous title came all the way back in 2004, so this was quite a drought. It was an encouraging result by Robert as well, having made his first ATP final after reaching 24 at the level of the challengers and futures. He's playing the best tennis of his career at age 29.

The other surprise finalist was Tomaz Bellucci, who managed to unseat Fernando Gonzalez in the semifinals at his home tournament and then beat clay court veteran Juan Monaco in the final. The young Brazilian is making an assault of the top levels of the game. He hasn't had any shocking upsets or performances that are bringing him a great deal of attention, but he's quietly improving and winning more and more matches. Clay is his favorite surface, so watch for him at the French Open this year.

A young player who is earning his attention is Croatian Marin Cilic, who somehow managed to fight off fatigue and red-hot challenger player Michael Berrer to defend his second title of the year. That's incredibly impressive for a player who should be exhausted after his past few weeks. Kudos to Cilic for his spectacular start of the year.

On the challenger circuit, Bernard Tomic won his second career title on the challenger circuit, while Carsten Ball was upset by American Ryan Sweeting.

Looking ahead to the next week, some of the top players are back in action. With last week's lineups a bit on the weak side, it's good to see a handful of the big dogs on the court once again.

The weakest field is actually in Brazil, where Juan Carlos Ferrero is the top seed at 22 in the world, and the eighth-seed is Richard Gasquet, who is ranked outside the top 50. Despite the lack of top players, there could be some firecracker matches in the late rounds. In addition to Ferrero and Gasquet, who are both trying to get as much preparation for the French Open as possible, Bellucci is in the draw. He made the final here last year, in his own back yard, so he'll be wanting to go one step further. Igor Andreev is also here, undoubtedly anxious to beat someone into
submission after having Federer on the ropes in the first round of the Aussie Open. Horacio Zeballos is also there, trying to justify his relatively high ranking with some results of note on the tour level.

Next week will also be Novak Djokovic's first tournament after moving to number 2 in the world rankings, at Rotterdamn. This is really a loaded draw, despite the lack of last year's champion Andy Murray. Davydenko and Soderling are also there, as well as Monfils and Youzhny. Not to mention the most appetizing opening round of the whole week, unseeded Marcos Baghdatis against unseeded James Blake. They've each been involved in some of the best matches of the year. Davydenko also opens against Feliciano Lopez, fresh off a victory. Amazingly, the winners of those matches will play each other in the second round. The magic of the draw...

I'm a bit surprised to see Blake in Rotterdam, actually, since he could easily have been at the tournament in San Jose, where most of the other Americans are. Roddick, Querrey, Odesnik, Fish, Dent, Ginepri, Britton, Ram, Russell, and a few others. That's pretty much every American even near the top of the game, except for Blake and Isner. The Americans will have to compete with some tough foreign resistance, though. Last year's champ Radek Stepanek is in the draw, as is Fernando Verdasco and Tomas Berdych. You'll also find Tommy Haas, who just got dual German-American citizenship a week or two ago. I wonder if he'll get more support this way?

Davydenko on top - Semifinals Week 1

While Soderling's loss to Ginepri may have been the first big upset of the year, the first time the world number one loses is always an upset, just by definition. Federer's loss to Davydenko may have been less surprising, since the Russian just won their most recent meeting at the World Tour Finals at the end of last season, but it is a bit unexpected since Federer had a 12-0 record against him before that.

In the first set, Nikolay put 100% of his first serves into play. Twenty-seven out of twenty-seven, which is just an unbelievable statistic. Davydenko gets Nadal in the final, who breezed past Serbian Viktor Troicki. They also played at the last event in 2009, and Davydenko came out on top. Although I've been a doubter in the past, the Russian may finally be developing the confidence to really make a run to a grand slam title. If he handles Nadal as well as he took care of Federer, it'll definitely put him in contention at the Aussie Open.

The semifinals at all four events this week were all populated by top 5 seeds. In Doha, 4th seed Youzhny was missing. In Chennai, it was top seed Soderling. But in Brisbane, all four top seeds have made it this far. Berdych had his hands full with Tomaz Bellucci, but his experience got him through in three. That said, this was one of the best matches I've seen Bellucci play, and he was just points from victory. I think he has the potential to be a top-ten player.

The other quarter in Brisbane was billed as a tougher contest, but was actually less competitive. Roddick and Gasquet both played well in a match that featured tremendous serving, clutch volleying, and and superb shot-making from the back of the court, as well. But Roddick managed a break in the first set (needing eight chances to do so) and then secured the match in the second-set tiebreak. The Frenchman is playing well, but he has yet to return to his top form. Roddick will play Berdych in the semis, and the pair has a close head-to-head record. It should be a good match.

Also in Brisbane, the women's final has been decided, and it was the match-up that everyone was hoping for. Kim Clijsters will take on her compatriot Justine Henin, back to a final in her first tournament in nearly two years. They've played a great deal in the past, with Henin coming out on top more often than not, but you have to give the edge to Clijsters based solely on recent form.

There's a third Belgian woman in a final this week, amazingly. Yanina Wickmayer will face top-seeded Flavia Pennetta in Auckland. It's good to see her shaking off the minor drug scandal that could have proved to be quite a distraction at the end of last season.

In Chennai, Janko Tipsarevic, who has been frustrated by the success of his compatriot Djokovic (or at least his own relative lack of it) beat young Dutch player Thiemo De Bakker, who has had an amazing run in his first tournament of the year. He'll playing defending champ Marin Cilic in the semis, for the privilege of playing the winner of Dudi Sela and Stan Wawrinka. It's tough to bet against a Wawrinka-Cilic final at this point, but as we've seen, upsets do happen.