The rules should be changed to help me, of course. A semifinalist and quarterfinalist in my Estoril draw, Nicolas Almagro and Tommy Robredo, dropped out after the first match of the tournament which is the deadline for substitutions in the ATP Fantasy League. Both players were scheduled to play on the second day of the tournament.

There’s luck in any game, if Kobe Bryant goes down with a sprained ankle, there goes the Lakers, but we should be able to make a substitution any time before a player’s first match.

There’s luck in any game, if Kobe Bryant goes down with a sprained ankle, there goes the Lakers, but we should be able to make a substitution any time before a player’s first match. That would keep us glued to the tournament website and could even result in endless calls to tournament directors for the latest injury list. Our behavior might start to look very similar to that strange animal known as a baseball fantasy league team owner.

Who knows, the interactivity of tennis fantasy teams could provoke an interest in tennis that other forms of exposure haven’t yet produced. In the recent past, sports mania has always been driven by star power but many young sports addicts get their fix playing video games, not watching games.

I don’t have a percentage for the number of baseball websites driven by fantasy league players but I know that Most Valuable Network, and most other sports networks, have a section devoted entirely to baseball transactions such as players who go on and off the injury list or are optioned to the minor leagues. When we get a site devoted entirely to tennis injuries and pullouts, then we’ll know that we’re a major sport.

Am I delusional or not? Will fantasy leagues increase the popularity of tennis? What do you think?

When we get a site devoted entirely to tennis injuries and pullouts, then we’ll know that we’re a major sport.

Almagro and Robredo are gone due to back problems and abdominals. Basically, it’s called too much tennis. Look at the ATP schedule. Coming up are two Masters Series tournaments in a row, Rome and Hamburg. Three times in a season two big tournaments follow one another. Rome and Hamburg, Toronto and Cincinatti, and, at the end of the season, the Paris Masters is followed by the year-end championships. If you’re one of the eight players in the year-end championship, why risk playing Paris? How else do you think Tomas Berdych got his first Masters win and how often will Ivan Ljubicic let such a golden opportunity slip through his hands?

Anyway, back to Estoril. With Robredo out, Moya should get an easy path to the quarters and meet Safin. That’s a real bonus to Moya because neither Safin – or Davydenko if I’m wrong – should be Moya’s equal on clay.

Muller beat Rochus surprisingly and Muller vs. Lapentti is hard to call. Lapentti is on the down side and Muller is rather hopeless on clay but I went with youth. Unless Muller has one of his once-a-year brilliant games in the third round and gets to the quarters, it won’t matter much.

Hopefully Moya can do much better than Guillermo Coria. My team member and the number one seed at Munich was beaten by German qualifier Denis Gremelmayr. Coria’s battle with his serve has hit rock bottom, he had seventeen double faults. Maybe he should hire Elena Dementieva to teach him how to win with 17 double faults.

Not only that but Tommy Haas lost to Ivo Karlovic, Mikhail Youzhny lost to Jurgen Melzer, and Mario Ancic lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber. Have I somehow entered a parallel universe where everything is backwards? Where the number eighty-six player is better than the number nineteen player?

The reworked Estoril and Munich draws are below. As always, chime in.

(names in blue are my predictions)
ESTORIL OPEN

BMW OPEN – MUNICH