Week 24 Quarterfinals

The seeds have not fared particularly well, through the middle of the week in the two grass-court tournaments taking place. At the Unicef Open in the Netherlands, only two of the starting eight seeds are remaining: Boris Becker and Janko Tipsarevic. Now that's something of an unexpected pairing to be remaining, out of the seeds that started the tournament. They're join in the last eight by a bunch of middle-of-the-pack tour veterans, as well as Belgian Xavier Malisse, who is trying to work on his career resurgence. I have to think that Malisse are Becker are the favorites to meet in the final, at this point, but since any player who makes a deep run this week will be at a disadvantage going into Wimbledon, it's hard to predict what's going to happen.

In Eastbourne, the seeds have fared moderately better. While top seeds Lopez and Almagro are out, the only other seed to lose thus far is clay-court specialist Horacio Zeballos. Frenchman Gilles Simon has had to fight through some tough matches to get to the quarterfinals, playing three tiebreaks in six sets, but it's good to get some match practice after missing most of the year with injury. The other exciting story is British wildcard James Ward, who has beaten two players with a history of grass-court accomplishment: Feliciano Lopez and Rainer Schuettler. Here's hoping he can win another couple matches this week. It's good for the hometown crowds.

On the women's side, there are some interesting match-ups on the way. Kim Clijsters is playing Victoria Azarenka, which is a pretty appetizing quarterfinal match-up, I have to say. The other top players remaining in Eastbourne are Stosur, Kuznetsova, and Bartoli. Pretty good draw to make it that far. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, Justine Henin is still pretty much the only force left in the draw. It'll be a disappointment if she doesn't make it through the draw - unless, of course, she wants to rest up a few more days before Wimbledon.

The Wimbledon qualifying tournament has gotten to the final round, with a couple really surprising upsets. Americans Donald Young and Ryan Harrison, who I thought really should made it to the main draw, toppled early. Josselin Ouanna also lost, which was a disappointment for me, since he's fun to watch. The most exciting - and gut-wrenching - match thus far was Nicolas Mahut over British Alex Bogdanovic, 24-22 in the third set. Oof, that lack of a last-set tiebreaker is a killer. Mahut's reward is former Grand Slam quarterfinalist Stefan Koubek.

Other interesting match-ups for the chance at entry into the main draw are Go Soeda against Jesse Witten, as well as another pair of Americans, Robert Kendrick against Ryan Sweeting. Bernard Tomic plays Prakash Amritaj, which is another interesting pairing. And my favorite pairing is Gilles Muller against Carsten Ball, who should adapt well to the grass, with the way he plays. I also hope that top seeded Taylor Dent makes it through, because he should love the surface, with his serve-and-volley style of play.