Week 30 Wrap-up and Week 31 Preview

Well, three out of the four finals today actually turned out to be a bit of a let-down. Three straight set victories, in which the losing player was basically never in the match. I'll get to the thriller last.

Unfortunately, Richard Gasquet seemed to have some sort of an injury - I was watching a video feed with no commentator, so I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was clear that Gasquet was not serving as well as he had been up to this point in the tournament. The Frenchman had been serving at about 55% and winning 70% of his first serve points up to now. In the final, though, those numbers were almost reversed - Gasquet served at 80% first serves and only won 56% of those points. Honestly, that's a sign of an injury - you don't suddenly start serving that weakly out of strategy. It's a shame, because there were some very good points, but Gasquet just couldn't keep up the level of play he needed.

In Umag, Ferrero was just too strong for his Italian opponent. Starace never had a break point against the former world number one. Ferrero only had one in each set, but that was all he needed. It was a good match, but not an exciting one.

The more star-studded of the women's final was something of a surprise - Victoria Azarenka won her first title since April last year, beating Sharapova thoroughly. The match would have been tighter, but I think Sharapova suffered from her late three-setter last night against Radwanska, and her three-setter the night before against Dementieva. She was tired, she hadn't played during the day, and she was facing an invigorated opponent. There were some stunning points, particularly in the first set, but not a lot of great serving - there were five breaks in the first set. Their games are similar, but the intangibles were with the Belarussian today. On another day, Sharapova could have easily taken the match.

The most exciting final today was definitely in Los Angeles - Sam Querrey lost the first set in a dispiriting fashion, double-faulting on break and set point after having held a one-break lead earlier in the set. He could have easily gone away, playing a higher-ranked, more experienced player who he had never even managed a single set against in four previous meetings. But Sam had already escaped defeat in his previous two matches, so he was playing with house money. Querrey upped his level of play significantly, smacking unbelievable winners that even Murray couldn't run down consistently. He didn't get frustrated by everything that the Scot was getting back, and he played well within himself.

That almost wasn't enough. Murray had another break and set point in the second set, but Querrey saved that, then ran away with the tiebreak. He really outplayed the world number four at that stage of the match, and he took the momentum and ran away with it. He kept his cool and went up a break in the third, served supremely well, and closed out the match. This is huge win for Querrey, who does not have a great record against the players at the top tier of the game. It may not have been on the biggest stage, but this was an excellent win. On the other hand, this is a bad sign for Andy Murray, who has still not won a title this year. He's losing almost 1400 points this month from his strong performances at last year's Summer hard court Masters events. He's not playing at that form this year, and he could drop out of the top four for the first time in a long while. I don't know if he's still hungover from that Aussie Open loss in the final or what, but we haven't seen classic Andy Murray since that tournament in 2010.

Looking ahead, after a week of so many tournaments taking place, it will be nice to be able to focus on one bigger event: the Legg Mason tennis championships in Washington, D.C. This will be an interesting event, because more of the top players are starting to come out of the post-Wimbledon woodwork, and the second European clay court season is finally over, so those players are crossing the Atlantic and joining the pre-U.S. Open party.

The top seed in Washington is Tomas Berdych, who hasn't played since the Wimbledon final. Considering his lack of match play, can't really be considered the favorite here, especially not with such a strong field. While two-time defending champ Juan Martin Del Potro can't defend his title, Andy Roddick is here, who won in 2007, when he beat John Isner. This was Isner's break-out tournament, and see how far he's come since then.

Sam Querrey is also here, and if he's not jaded after playing four three-set matches in as many days last week, can have a strong week. Mardy Fish is also back, after taking last week off, still riding a ten match winning streak. And while James Blake may have been unable to get over the hump against Feliciano Lopez last week, he still played as well as he has since January. That's a lot of strong Americans in the field.

And in addition to the home-town boys, Verdasco and Cilic are also in action, as are Baghdatis and Gulbis. Former champions Lleyton Hewitt and Arnaud Clement are also here. Radek Stepanek is getting back into action, after a long injury layoff, and the surprise winner in Hamburg, Andrey Golubev, is the 16th seed. Two wildcards also went to David Nalbandian and Richard Gasquet. And one of my favorite up-and-coming players, Kei Nishikori, made it through qualifying. Plenty of space for fireworks this week.

The best opening-round matches are between last week's almost semifinalist Janko Tipsarevic and Arnaud Clement, a former champion here. And they're playing for the privilege of getting Sam Querrey in the second round! Also look for James Blake against U.S. qualifier Ryan Sweeting, who has a good career ahead of him. Dmitry Tursonov, who has been having a really rough year, plays Roddick's conqueror at the French Open, Teymuraz Gabashvili. David Nalbandian plays Rajeev Ram, and Yen-Hsun Lu (Roddick's conqueror at Wimbledon) plays Alejandro Falla. Those are some pretty good first-rounds.

I have a busy week ahead of me, with some travel, so I won't be able to focus on the tennis as much as I would like, which is a shame. But I'll try to catch and write about what I can.