Week 18 Finals

In terms of semifinal surprises, there was one minor one and one major one. The shocking result from yesterday's tennis was Federer's loss to Albert Montanes, the defending champion in Estoril, but also a player ranked 30 spots below Federer. This is probably Federer's most surprising loss, and while he credited Montanes with being a clay-court specialist after the match, Federer is the defending Roland Garros champion, so he should be able to figure out a match against a player ranked outside the top 30.

Montanes, who beat James Blake in the final last year in an epic match, will face Portuguese player Frederico Gil, who is the player from his nation to make the finals of an ATP tournament. Kudos to him, and if Montanes is at all hungover after his win against Federer, Gil could make a little more history.

There's more history being made in Belgrade, where John Isner upset Stan Wawrinka in the relatively minor upset of the day, to face American compatriot Sam Querrey in the finals. It's been 19 years since a clay-court final featured two American players, if you can believe that. Maybe the long, cold winter of American clay futility is beginning to end? That should be an interesting match, because I think Sam has the better game for the surface, but Isner is stronger mentally. And these two players know each other very well.

In Munich, there weren't any surprises. Top seed faces second seed, as Cilic takes on Mikhail Youzhny. Nothing particularly interesting to note, as these two players have both had good years - this is, if I'm not mistaken, Youzhny's fourth final since the beginning of the season, and he's yet to bag a title. Maybe he can finally make it across the finish line?

Tomorrow, we'll look at the draw in Madrid, the last big clay-court warm-up before the French Open. For his sake, I hope Federer can get some traction there.