Scheduling is a mess...

... when you've got tennis taking place in places that are ten hours apart. In my current time zone, the tennis in Auckland starts at around 6 PM, Brisbane starts at 6:30, Chennai starts at 6 AM, and Doha starts at 7. It's tough to figure out how to watch all of that and still find time to sleep! I'm glad I caught as much as I did yesterday, though.

Brisbane is where all the action is. Justine Henin's comeback continues, and she's into the semifinals, where she'll play Ana Ivanovic, which is definitely the dream match-up for the bottom half of the draw. Both players have been doing well, and even though she may be rusty, I'm inclined to give this one to Justine based on experience. She managed to pull out a tight one against Melinda Czink, squandering five (possible six) match points before winning in a third-set tiebreaker.

Another player who squeaked through in a third-set breaker was James Blake, who saved three match points against Marc Gicquel before winning 10-8. Blake played very well, and was a bit more patient than I'd seen him be in these types of tight matches. He was still blowing winners by Gicquel whenever he gets the chance, but he took the time to set up more points than I'm used to seeing. That's a positive for Blake. His first real test comes tonight, though, when he plays Frenchman Gael Monfils. I don't care how late it is, I'm staying up to watch it, since it's a match between two of the best shotmakers in the game. And Monfils has been struggling in his first two rounds, playing six sets and four tiebreaks.

Another high-quality match in Brisbane was Andy Roddick against Carsten Ball. Ball did not play like a challenger-regular whose ranking has never dipped inside the top hundred. For twelve games in the first set and then seven games in the second, there was very little to choose between these two players. However, Roddick showed his variety and his experience in the tiebreak, winning all seven points, and then breaking Ball in the second set before serving out the match. Despite the loss, it should be an encouraging performance for Carsten. No doubt we'll see the big-serving lefty again.

I have to say that the matches in the other three tournaments taking place this week haven't really been at the same level. Most of the players in Chennai and Doha cruised over the past few days, particularly the big three in Doha. However, two of them face their first challenge in the next round, potentially. Federer goes up against Ernests Gulbis, and Davydenko takes on Ivo Karlovic. I expect that both of them will come through those matches, but there's an outside chance of an upset in each.

There were a few matches that had the potential to be exciting, but then didn't deliver. After beating DeHeart in the first round, Younes El Aynaoui excited everyone about his potential to play Nadal, but his body just didn't hold up, and he was vanquished easily by Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis. In Chennai, local hopeful beat former top-ten player Rainer Schuettler in the first round, only to be shut down by Janko Tipsarevic 2 and 1.

American Wayne Odesnik looked to be challenging defending champ Radek Stepanek in Brisbane as well, breaking the wily Czech and serving for the first set. But Odesnik seemed to tweak something in his back, and from that point on, he was never in the match. Additionally, he seemed to repeatedly forget that Brisbane didn't have the hawkeye challenge system in play, and had to be reminded by the umpire twice.

As we move into the final rounds of this first week of the season, I have to wonder how I got by without tennis for two months.