Rome Wrap-up and Week 18 Preview

The result of the Rome final went as predicted, so I'm afraid it doesn't merit a lot of attention. Nadal was running even with Ferrer before the first rain delay, and after that he broke and won the first set. The second, despite another rain delay, wasn't much of a contest. And Nadal is now tied for the most Masters shields of any player since their creation in 1990. He is now ahead of Roger Federer in this department, if you can believe that. He'll be sitting out this week, but back for Madrid. He could take the all-time lead in a few weeks with a win there. We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, there are three lower-tier clay-court tournaments this week. I'll take a quick look at each one in turn. Estoril in Portugal is Roger Federer's tournament, and is his to lose. The Serbia Open, in its second year, should be won by Novak Djokovic because he's the highest seed by far, but also because he owns the damn thing. In Munich, the BMW Open is the most up for grabs of any of this week's tournaments. No obvious favorite, there.

Looking with a little bit more depth, I really don't see who can trouble Roger Federer in his draw. The only players who have the ability to hurt him are the second and third seeds, Gael Monfils and Ivan Ljubicic. But they're both in the bottom half of the draw, so Federer won't face them until the final, at the earliest. They are also both coming off injury, so they might not be at 100%. If Federer doesn't win this tournament, then we'll know that he is really struggling.

In Belgrade, Djokovic is similarly favored, but he has more legitimate competition. All of the Americans who are in action at the top level of the game are in Belgrade, so he may have to get through Sam Querrey or John Isner, in a rematch of the first round of Davis Cup. San Wawrinka, Igor Andreev, and Richard Gasquet are also in the tournament. It's also worth noting that Djokovic's little brother Marko got a wildcard into the tournament and faces off against Italian qualifier Alessio Di Maurio in the first round. Could be interesting to see what he's capable of. There are a few other players in the draw that I like, such as Josselin Ouanna, Michael Russel, Horacio Zeballos, Evgeny Korolev, and Janko "Tipsy" Tipsarevic, but it's a bit early to see if any of them will make any noise.

As I said, the most open tournament is the one in Munich. The top seed, Marin Cilic, is 1-2 so far this year on clay, which is not exactly the kind of record that you hope to be taking into a tournament like this. He'll also be up against Mikhail Youzhny (last year's finalist) and defending champion Tomas Berdych, as well as former champ Philipp Kohlschreiber. Not to mention Marcos Baghdatis and Nicolas Almagro, and unseeded Mario Ancic and Nicolas Kiefer, who have both been in the top ten. This tournament is pretty much wide open, and could produce some of the best matches of the week.

I know I've been neglecting the women's tour recently, so I'm going to do a bit of catch-up today. First of all, huge congratulations to the US Fed Cup team for beating the Russians to get back to the final, even without the Williams sisters. Second, kudos to Justine Henin for winning the first title of her comeback, just in time to prep for the French Open, where she will now be seeded, if I am not mistaken. Could she win it? I don't really know who the other contenders might be, honestly.

The women's tournament in Rome takes place this week, and this is the first time that so many of the top players have all been in action since the Australian Open. Nine of the top ten players are here, with only Sam Stosur withdrawing after losing her final to Justine Henin. It's Serena's first tournament since her win at the Australian Open. We'll see how she's doing - Dinara Safina is back as well. Really, this is the chance to see how everyone is doing in the lead-up to the French. Except for Kim Clijsters, who is having some trouble with injury. It would be a shame if she misses the tournament this year.

Lots of action coming up this week, since in addition to everything I've mentioned already, there are some interesting challenger matches that I'm keeping my eyes on. We'll see how the week develops.