Scheduling is a mess...

... when you've got tennis taking place in places that are ten hours apart. In my current time zone, the tennis in Auckland starts at around 6 PM, Brisbane starts at 6:30, Chennai starts at 6 AM, and Doha starts at 7. It's tough to figure out how to watch all of that and still find time to sleep! I'm glad I caught as much as I did yesterday, though.

Brisbane is where all the action is. Justine Henin's comeback continues, and she's into the semifinals, where she'll play Ana Ivanovic, which is definitely the dream match-up for the bottom half of the draw. Both players have been doing well, and even though she may be rusty, I'm inclined to give this one to Justine based on experience. She managed to pull out a tight one against Melinda Czink, squandering five (possible six) match points before winning in a third-set tiebreaker.

Another player who squeaked through in a third-set breaker was James Blake, who saved three match points against Marc Gicquel before winning 10-8. Blake played very well, and was a bit more patient than I'd seen him be in these types of tight matches. He was still blowing winners by Gicquel whenever he gets the chance, but he took the time to set up more points than I'm used to seeing. That's a positive for Blake. His first real test comes tonight, though, when he plays Frenchman Gael Monfils. I don't care how late it is, I'm staying up to watch it, since it's a match between two of the best shotmakers in the game. And Monfils has been struggling in his first two rounds, playing six sets and four tiebreaks.

Another high-quality match in Brisbane was Andy Roddick against Carsten Ball. Ball did not play like a challenger-regular whose ranking has never dipped inside the top hundred. For twelve games in the first set and then seven games in the second, there was very little to choose between these two players. However, Roddick showed his variety and his experience in the tiebreak, winning all seven points, and then breaking Ball in the second set before serving out the match. Despite the loss, it should be an encouraging performance for Carsten. No doubt we'll see the big-serving lefty again.

I have to say that the matches in the other three tournaments taking place this week haven't really been at the same level. Most of the players in Chennai and Doha cruised over the past few days, particularly the big three in Doha. However, two of them face their first challenge in the next round, potentially. Federer goes up against Ernests Gulbis, and Davydenko takes on Ivo Karlovic. I expect that both of them will come through those matches, but there's an outside chance of an upset in each.

There were a few matches that had the potential to be exciting, but then didn't deliver. After beating DeHeart in the first round, Younes El Aynaoui excited everyone about his potential to play Nadal, but his body just didn't hold up, and he was vanquished easily by Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis. In Chennai, local hopeful beat former top-ten player Rainer Schuettler in the first round, only to be shut down by Janko Tipsarevic 2 and 1.

American Wayne Odesnik looked to be challenging defending champ Radek Stepanek in Brisbane as well, breaking the wily Czech and serving for the first set. But Odesnik seemed to tweak something in his back, and from that point on, he was never in the match. Additionally, he seemed to repeatedly forget that Brisbane didn't have the hawkeye challenge system in play, and had to be reminded by the umpire twice.

As we move into the final rounds of this first week of the season, I have to wonder how I got by without tennis for two months.

A bevy of upsets

The 2009 tennis season is well underway, and the narratives are already getting interesting. The biggest story of the day is Rafael Nadal losing to Gael Monfils, who won in straights, despite having never won a set off the ATP number one in their previous three meetings. I wondered if that meant Nadal wasn't in the best physical shape still, especially after he went out for his doubles match and lost the first set 6-1. But then he and his partner Marc Lopez (no relation to Feliciano, it seems) won the second set in a tie-break and then won the super tie-break 11-9. Tomorrow, Monfils plays Roddick, and Monfils has to be the favorite, coming off such a convincing victory.

The other Doha semifinal is the one I've been waiting for all week: Murray-Federer round seven! I wish it were being broadcast, because it promises to be a stellar match. Since Murray won their last two meetings, he probably has the edge, but since their last few matches have been incredibly tight affairs, it's not much of an edge. Federer wants this win really bad, I'm sure. It's more important to him than it is to Murray, just like the other semifinal is probably more important to Roddick than Monfils. Unfortunately, I'm picking both of them to lose.

In Chennai, there was a lot of catch-up play today. The most exciting story is that Karlovic (beating the other Ivo with no trouble) dodged a bullet when his likely next round opponent, Carlos Moya, lost to a wildcard Somdev Devvarman, currently ranked 202. I attribute this more to Moya's body not being able to hold up to his style of play, but it's always fun to see a local kid making the run of his life. Unfortunately, he's about to run into a brick wall - a wall that will pummel him with 138-mph serves over and over again.

Other than that, things are going about as one would expect in Chennai. Tomorrow, Tipsarevic is going to play Marin Cilic, which is definitely the most exciting match-up they have to offer. I predict that either the winner of that match or Ivo Karlovic is going to win the whole tournament.

In Brisbane, the two quarterfinals we had today went much as expected. Mathieu had too much experience for Nishikori, and Verdasco recovered from losing the first set to blow Serra off the court. By the way, have you seen his forehand? When it's firing on all cylinders, it's one of the best on tour. For tomorrow, we've got that enticing Tsonga-Gasquet match to look forward to, as well as a less-thrilling quarterfinal between Robin Soderling and Radek "the worm" Stepanek. I'll take Soderling in that match-up, but you never know with Stepanek. He's quite an enigma.

Also in Brisbane, Amelie Mauresmo really showed me by beating Ana Ivanovic in two pretty easy sets. It may be more that Amelie recovered from her tough three-setter the day before more quickly than her younger, Serbian opponent, but sometimes that's all it takes. Ana may need to work on her fitness. Mauresmo may be able to make something out of this year - that was her first win over a top 10 player since 2006, and that's a fine way to start out 2009. She plays Marion Bartoli next, who had no trouble with Tathiana Garbin, so we'll see how Mauresmo deals with a well-rested opponent.

The biggest match tomorrow - the biggest match of the whole week - is Murray v. Federer. I expect we'll see them play again this year, at more significant tournaments. Murray wants Federer to know that the next time they meet in a slam final, Federer can expect more resistance. And Federer wants everyone to know that he doesn't have mono this year. It should be great.

The AO's first casualty

Even though rain in Chennai prevented any matches from being played to completion, the top seed still managed to find his way out of the tournament: Davydenko pulled out with an injury to his heel, which also takes him out of the Australian Open. It's inevitable that somebody is going to be unable to play at each of these big tournaments, but Davydenko is such a decent, steady, fit guy that I'm surprised it's him. Here's hoping for a swift recovery.

While it rained in India, there was some very interesting play in Australia and Qatar. In Brisbane, Gulbis couldn't follow up on his victory over Djokovic, and lost to Paul-Henri Mathieu. Does that mean that Djoko's loss had more to do with Novak being rusty or with Gulbis not being mature enough to perform up to the same level after securing the biggest win of his career? Probably a bit of both.

Kei Nishikori continues to impress, beating fifth seed Tomas Berdych. Ancic fell to Verdasco, who was always the favorite, but I bet Ancic's marathon of a match yesterday didn't help his chances. Speaking of marathons, Tsonga had to win the second and third sets in tiebreaks after getting bageled in the first by Nieminen to avenge a loss that the Finn dealt the Frenchman almost exactly a year ago.

Tsonga will be rewarded with a day's rest and then a match against his countryman Richard Gasquet, who will have had two days off after a much-easier match against Taylor Dent. The pair are 2-2, and while Tsonga has been playing better tennis of late, I bet that Gasquet would like to remind French fans that he's still around. That one could be good.

But as for tomorrow in Brisbane, the headline match has to be Ana Ivanovic against Amelie Mauresmo, who both had tough three-set victories today. Mauresmo will have to return to her 2006 form to win this one. The Frenchwoman has been on the verge of retiring for quite a while, but it would be great to see her have a late-career resurgence.

The other highlight is to see if Kei Nishikori can continue to roll, as he comes up against the guy who beat the guy who beat Djokovic, P.H. Mathieu. I'd love to see the Japanese teen continue to win, but I figure that at some point, he's going to run into somebody with enough experience to stop him, and Mathieu may be just the veteran to do that. Also, keep an eye on doubles team Chris Guccione and Carsten Ball, who are (I believe) the only local players left in this Aussie tournament. Don't expect them to last long against top-seeded Mirnyi and Ram.

In Doha, things continue much as one might expect, but interesting clashes are coming up fast. Today, all the seeds won and Youzhny had his expected slump after beating Andreev yesterday, falling to Victor Hanescu. None of the matches in Qatar were terribly thrilling, although Kohlschreiber had to lose a second set tie-break before beating Kristof Vliegen in three. Here's hoping he keeps it close enough with Roger Federer to lose a tie-break.

Tomorrow, Roddick and Murray should both come through easily against Hanescu and Stakhovsky, respectively. Roddick in particular needs to get as much momentum as he can before the season's first major in two weeks. The real exciting match tomorrow is Nadal against Gael Monfils. The Frenchman has never beat the Spaniard, but Monfils is getting better and better, so this is probably the best shot he's had yet. Really, that ought to be headlining match tomorrow, but they had to put it at mid-day, so Rafa could have a little time to recover before he went back to play doubles against Santoro (who he's already beaten once) and Youzhny. Unless Monfils really tires him out, he should win that one, too.

In addition to Nadal, Tsonga is also still in both the singles and doubles draws, as are Verdasco, Tipsarevic, and Schuettler, thought some of them haven't even played a doubles match, yet. I'm pressed with these guys that can play singles and doubles and do well at both. The game is much more physical than it was in the 80's, when guys like McEnroe would win both the singles and doubles grand slam titles at the same tournament, multiple times.

We also have Ivo against Ivo to look forward to, but unfortunately, Aleksandra Wozniack lost before she could play Caroline Wozniacki. To have Ivo-Ivo and Wozniack-Wozniacki on the same day would have been just too good.