Clay court specialists are scurrying back to the clay as fast as possible. Two of the three tournaments this week, Baastad (Sweden) and Gstaad (Switzerland), are on clay. Newport (USA) is on grass. Three tournaments on two different continents, do you wonder why the ATP has trouble marketing itself when it’s spread all over the map on the same week? What if race car driver Michael Schumacher was racing in Indianaopolis while his competitor Fernando Alonso was racing through Monte Carlo? Formula One racing isn’t dumb enough to do that.

I can think of four players who have this serve and they’re all itches: Alex Bogdanovic (born in Serbia), Ivan Ljubicic (born in Bosnia), Mario Ancic and Ivanisevic (born in Croatia).

Rafael Nadal won the title in Baastad, Sweden, last year and had scheduled himself to play in this year’s tournament before he got to the Wimbledon final. That tells you what he thought about his chances at Wimbledon.

One morning when I was five years old I heard the school bells ring, which meant that I was late, so I started running as fast as I could to get there on time. I’d just been given a hand-me-down raincoat and the pockets were too small. I tripped, which was bad enough, but then I fell on my nose because I couldn’t get my hands out of my pockets. That could have been same day someone told me that God watches over the stupid. I still have the scar.

I mention this because I picked Nadal for Monte Carlo earlier this year, along with everyone else, then stupidly forgot to put him on my team. That meant he was available for Wimbledon because I still had four Nadal picks left. As you probably know by now, he got to the finals at Wimbledon and that allowed me to jump from the cellar of the tennisdiary subleague into the second spot. I also jumped two thousand places in the overall rankings.

Nadal, strangely enough, was my money player for the week since few other people picked him.

I’m tellin’ ya, when there are three small tournaments in one week winners are hard to pick because there are lots of players who have equally hopeless records for the year. Many times I’m picking someone based on a 1-0 head-to-head record or, more likely, 0-0. Pay attention to prize money: Gstaad will pay $74,197 to the winner, Baastad $55,742 and Newport $52,000.

Blake is playing Newport but I wouldn’t waste him on a $52,000 tournament.

Gaston Gaudio will defend his title in Gstaad and he’s a good bet because Ljubicic is his only competition. Interesting to note that Ljubicic said he played exclusively on clay up through his early teenage years. His game doesn’t look like it. He’s got that Goran Ivanisevic serve. I call it the rocking chair. You start by bending forward, sticking your butt out and rocking onto your back foot. You then step forward, bend over backwards and launch your body up at the ball.

I can think of four players who have this serve and they’re all itches: Alex Bogdanovic (born in Serbia), Ivan Ljubicic (born in Bosnia), Mario Ancic and Ivanisevic (born in Croatia). And those last three are huge servers. Must be something in the food.

I’m not sure I’d use Ljubicic here, though. I’d save him for the Madrid and Paris Masters and this year he could do well at the US Open. I would take Gaudio, Verdasco and Mathieu and pick a money player such as Wawrinka who made it to the final here last year and is playing at home.

I thought I’d used up all my clay court players but now I have another opportunity to pick Tommy Robredo and Nikolay Davydenko. Davydenko has made it to the quarterfinals of only two Masters Series events that were on fast surfaces and has never made it to the US Open quarterfinals so you might as well use him on clay. I have Berdych through to the semifinals at Baastad but I have no confidence in him. He could easily lose earlier and he injured his leg at a challenger after Roland Garros. Davydenko and Robredo are the only safe picks at Baastad.

Newport accompanies the yearly Tennis Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. Patrick Rafter, Gabriela Sabatini and Gianni Clerici – a tennis columnist and author – are being inducted this year. This will tell you how fast and far James Blake has been traveling: last year he was the number eight seed in Newport and Paul Goldstein was number seven. Blake is playing Newport but I wouldn’t waste him on a $52,000 tournament. He can do well in the Masters Series events, especially since they don’t play five setters till the final. Blake is currently 0-9 in five setters.

The player we’ve been watching here at tennisdiary, Benjamin Becker, is in the qualifying at Newport after getting to the second round at Wimbledon. Tennisdiary, along with photographer Michael Ferlan, is going to the Country Wide Classic in Los Angeles later this month so I’m hoping Bennie will be there and we can ask him about his Wimbledon experience.

Well, today is my birthday and the Newport draft is still not up – what’s their problem, don’t they know there are 11,000 fantasy league players desperately in need of it? – so I’m going off to my birthday party. You’ll have to look at the draw later and pick a few players from it. You should be able to find it here.

I’m going to write about the Federer-Nadal match tomorrow because it’s such a rich match that I want to take my time with it. Someone once told me that Greeks give gifts to their friends on their birthday instead of receiving them. I don’t know if that’s true and I’m not giving you gifts, but I will say “happy birthday” to all of you.