Week 29 Finals and Week 30 Preview

Really interesting finals this week. Melzer made his first final of the season (in singles) and as the last seeded player, up against a second-time finalist Andrey Golubev whose ranking was south of 80th in the world. Melzer was the big favorite, but Golubev followed up an astounding week by blowing the French open semifinalist off the court. This week has been a revelation for the Kazakh player - it's amazing to me that he's had such an unremarkable career up to this point. He's on my list of players to watch - if he can play like this, he'll be in the top 20 in no time.

In Atlanta, Mardy Fish continues his stunning run. He's now won two tournaments in a row for the first time in his career - that's a ten match winning streak for Mardy. John Isner played a tough match, but he just ran out of gas. Conditions did not favor the tall American, who had played all of his matches in the heat of the day, and he couldn't quite close the deal, though he did get Fish to a third-set tiebreak. A really strong performance by both players. Fish is headed back to the top of the game, as well. It'll be fascinating to see how he does in this year's U.S. Open series.

Looking ahead to this week's tournaments, there are two more clay-court events in Europe, and one more hard-court even in America. These are almost the last clay-court tournaments this season, with one lone exception in September. So all of the clay-court specialists are trying to get some action in - in Gstaad, we've got Richard Gasquet back in action, as well as Youzhny, Almagro, Bellucci, and Montanes. Unseeded players to watch are Andreev, Nieminen, and last week's titlist Andrey Golubev.

In Umag, Davydenko is the top seed, but he's still trying to get back on track after his injury lay-off. Ferrero and Melzer are here as well, but all in all, the Croatian tournament has a weaker field than in Switzerland. Olivier Rochus opens against Philipp Petzschner, which is one of the more interesting match-ups, but I think this tournament may not heat up until the third round or so.

The third and final tournament taking place this week was going to feature Novak Djokovic, but he pulled out - somewhat mysteriously. Fortunately for the tournament, Andy Murray took a wildcard, so that should be interesting. Murray hasn't won a title yet this year, and that's saying something. He hasn't even made a final since the Australian Open. Ernests Gulbis is back from his layoff this week as well, and he could be Murray's third round opponent, if he gets past Teimuraz Gabashvili in the second round. The second quarter of the draw has Mardy Fish, who has been playing great, but he has to run out of gas eventually. He may have to get past Feliciano Lopez, or perhaps James Blake, if he can finally put a few matches together. Sam Querrey and Marcos Baghdatis are also in action in the bottom half of the draw. The winner of the U.S. Open series gets extra bonus money at the U.S. Open, so these tournaments can be important.