It’s time for the ATP Fantasy Tennis Season so check out our Fantasy Tennis Guide. You’ll find Fast Facts, Strategies, and Statistics to help you play the game.

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This week’s submission deadline is Monday morning, July 14, 4am (EST) in the U.S./10am (CET) in Europe.

The European clay court season finally comes to an end this week with three tournaments and the North American hard court season starts up with Indianapolis. Yes, we have four tournaments again this week.

Kitzbuhel (clay, first prize: $180,000)
Amersfoort (clay, first prize: $83,461)
Umag (clay, first prize: $83,461)
Indianapolis (hard court, $83,500)

As you can see, Kitzbuhel is paying more than twice as much as the other three tournaments. We need eight players for our fantasy team and after looking at the draws, I’m going to pick three players from the Kitzbuhel draw, two each from Amersfoort and Umag, and one from Indianapolis.

Kitzbuhel

We need three players from this draw and the top half of the draw is loaded with good players so I’m taking two from the top half and one from the bottom half.

In the first quarter, Andreas Seppi reached the quarterfinals here last year and so did Sergio Roitman. Juan Martin Del Potro reached the quarterfinals two years ago. Seppi looks like the premier player with a semifinal at Hamburg and a quarterfinal at Poertschach, but he lost to the 162nd ranked player in the first round this week. And his first opponent is Nicolas Devilder who is killing the challenger circuit on clay. Roitman is having a bad year. Seppi beat Del Potro in their only meeting and Del Potro is in the Stuttgart final this week and I don’t trust him to do well at two events in a row. I’m picking Seppi to come out of this quarter.

The second quarter is even worse because Agustin Calleri reached the semifinals here last year and won it the year before, and he reached the semifinals at Stuttgart this week. However, his first round opponent, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, reached the semifinals this week too – in Gstaad. Victor Hanescu, who hasn’t done anything all year, is in the final at Gstaad where he will meet Pablo Andujar. Calleri has the best results this year and he has the best record here so I expect him to come out of this quarter.

As for the bottom half, Eduardo Schwank and Potito Starace are the only players of note in the third quarter. Starace reached the final last year but he’s had a disappointing year. He did beat Carlos Moya and Marat Safin to get to the quarterfinals at Bastad this week but Schwank beat Moya too and Schwank has beaten some players this year that Starace has lost to. So I’d love to pick Schwank but he’s not eligible because his ranking was higher than 100 when the fantasy season started.

Rainer Schuettler is the second seed and he’s in the bottom quarter, but he’s 1-5 on clay this year and Jurgen Melzer has a losing record on clay. I’m picking Starace in the bottom half of the draw and crossing my fingers.

Amersfoort

The top seed in this event is 48th ranked Marc Gicquel and he has a losing record on clay this year. Gicquel lost to Steve Darcis last year in the first round and Darcis went on to win this tournament. Both Darcis and Gicquel are in the top half of the draw and this is very hard to pick.

Darcis is an enigma. He beat Gilles Simon, Igor Andreev, and Mikhil Youzhny on the way to the title last year and he also won the title in Memphis this year on indoor hard court by beating Robin Soderling. Beyond that, he’s never been past the second round of an ATP event and after going 6-1 on clay last year, he’s 3-6 this year. Florent Serra reached the quarterfinals here last year and he has a better record than Gicquel or Darcis on clay, so I’m picking Serra in the top half of the draw.

In the bottom half, Albert Montanes has beaten Kristof Vliegen, Santiago Ventura, Marcel Granollers, and Jose Acasuso on clay this year – Acasuso twice – so he’s my pick for the bottom half.

Umag

Fernando Verdasco is the top seed and he looks like the overwhelming favorite. He’s had two semifinals and a final here in the past four years and he has two wildcards and a qualifier in his quarter.

Other than a quarterfinal at Hamburg, Carlos Moya hasn’t gone past the first round at a clay event since February, and there isn’t much else in the second quarter so Verdasco is my pick for the top half.

In the third quarter, it’s very hard to pick between Guillermo Canas and Igor Andreev. Canas has been playing well lately with a quarterfinal in his last two clay events and a semifinal at s’Hertogenbosch on grass, but his opponents have been weak. Andreev reached the quarterfinals at Gstaad this week over stronger competition and he’s beaten some strong players on clay this year, so I think he’ll come out of this quarter.

Ivan Ljubicic reached the fourth round at the French Open and the final at Poertschach but, except for a five set victory over Nikolay Davydenko, he hasn’t beaten anyone of note. Ivo Karlovic is in this quarter and he has victories over Tommy Robredo and Paul-Henri Mathieu on clay this year so I’m not sure who’ll come out of this quarter. Therefore, I’m picking Andreev for the bottom half.

Indianapolis

Indianapolis is very consistent. Half of the top eight seeds have reached the quarterfinals in each of the past five years. Speaking of that, I’d like to pick Frank Dancevic because he’s unseeded and he reached the final here last year. But he lost to Dmitry Tursunov in that final – Tursunov is in this draw – and he just lost to Bobby Reynolds at Wimbledon and Reynolds could be his second round opponent.

Sam Querrey is in the bottom half of this draw and he reached the semifinals last year by beating James Blake, the top seed, but Tommy Haas is also in the bottom half and he beat Querrey three times last year, two on hard court. You never know when Haas’ troublesome shoulder will break down but he did just get to the third round at Wimbledon, and he got to the quarterfinals at Indian Wells, so I have to pick him to come out of the bottom half of the draw.

Blake has reached the quarterfinals or better in every hard court event he’s played this year and that includes Miami, Indian Wells, and the Australian Open, so it’s hard not to pick him to reach the final. But should you waste him in a small tournament with low prize money? I’ve only picked Blake once this year so I have four picks left. Last year he won the title at New Haven, reached the final at Cincinnati, and the fourth round at the U.S. Open. He also does very well at Stockholm which pays good money so I’m saving him.

I’m picking Haas in this draw.

Picks

My picks this week are Seppi, Calleri, Starace, Serra, Montanes, Verdasco, Andreev, and Haas.

Happy Fantasies!

We switched writer schedules around on Tennis Diary and I already switched days this week so I could party last weekend, so everything’s a bit messed up. Not only that but I spent hours on the phone with the Internal Revenue Service today and I know you Europeans and East Coasters will be tuning in to the men’s semifinals before I’ve poured my spelt flakes into a bowl tomorrow morning, so I’m putting up this very short post to give you somewhere to go back and forth with each other.

Don’t expect too much out of Rainer Schuettler. The poor guy slogged through two tiebreakers and an 8-6 fifth set today before finally putting away Arnaud Clement and that’s after playing the first two sets of the match yesterday. Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal, his opponent in the semifinals, was lazing about waiting for tomorrow.

Marat Safin and Roger Federer makeup the other semifinal and we could be looking at a day that looked very much like the women’s semifinals today: Venus and Serena Williams cruised into the final with straight set victories. And that brings up the perennial question: can Venus and Serena play each other tough in a final?

They’ve played in six slam finals – which is pretty amazing in itself – and two of those have gone three sets and that was five years ago. They did play a tight three setter that ended in a tiebreaker in Bangalore earlier this year so there’s hope but I am left wondering: much of their career has been the Williams sisters against the rest of the world and that breaks down, obviously, when they play each other. Does that explain why they don’t play each other closely? Or is it just the the difficulty of beating up your sibling who you love dearly?

We’ll be back tomorrow.

Serena and Venus Williams are on their way to a sister to sister final at Wimbledon but I’m not paying much attention. What’s my problem?

Two sportscasters were talking about the current state of U.S. sports on the radio this afternoon. The U.S. is currently ranked 30th in the world in soccer, failed to reach the semifinals in the World Baseball Classic even though it was held in the U.S. and baseball is the national pastime, settled for the bronze medal in basketball at the last Olympics, and didn’t get a male tennis player past the third round at Wimbledon.

The U.S. still reigns supreme in U.S. football but that’s only because no other country plays it. And then there are the Williams sisters. Serena and Venus Williams are on course to meet in the finals at Wimbledon on Saturday. Neither sister has dropped a set yet and Serena bageled Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarterfinals.

Still, I found myself watching Andy Murray to see if he could reproduce another stunning match and take out Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals – he couldn’t – and checking in on Roger Federer to see if he’d have one of those off days that have taken him out of some big events this year – he didn’t, he took Mario Ancic out in straight sets.

I now realize that I have an attitude about the sisters and what’s up with that?

1. Identity problem. This refers to Serena. I can’t get a bead on her. Venus reads pretty clearly. She’s an earnest and positive, even giggly, woman who loves her sister and family and works pretty hard at tennis. Serena? I don’t really know who she is. There’s the viciously competitive player who will not be denied when she wants it bad enough; the one who voiced the word “bitch” during a match with Justine Henin. There’s the all-business on court player who doesn’t mess around with bathroom breaks and other non-tennis tactics – unlike Henin – she just plays the game. There’s the player who is known to dismiss opponents as unimportant to the outcome of a match even after they’ve beaten her. There’s the woman who vamps on the fashion runway and peers out coyly from her WTA headshot. Is she viciously competitive and in your face or is she a coy ingénue? In your face is acceptable and beneficial in the world of competitive sports but it doesn’t go over well in the world of entertainment and sometimes I’m not sure which version of Serena I’m looking at.
2. Jilted lover. I was burned by the sisters when they took off for alternative careers in acting and fashion and I’m hesitant to fall in love again. It wasn’t totally their fault. Both sisters had extensive problems with injuries and that accounted for some of their layoffs, but their lack of total dedication to the game frustrated me enough to transfer my tennis love elsewhere.
3. Gender issues. I have some gender issues: I relate better to male athletes than I do to female athletes. I was riding home from Baja on a bus last week with a woman who is a longtime friend of Billie Jean King and she was rather mystified as to how this could be. Try explaining your preference for watching male athletes to a longtime friend of Billie Jean who was a founder of the WTA, is partially responsible for Title IX – the bedrock of U.S. law forbidding discrimination against women, and started the Women’s Sports Foundation. I took a few hard swallows before I managed to assure this woman that I was beyond thankful to Billie Jean but it’s just the way I’m wired. I like to watch the men. She grudgingly accepted my preference and mumbled something along the lines of, “At least you know what you like.”
4. Aloofness. Again, this is not Serena or Venus’ fault but it is their father’s fault. The sisters have been held apart since their early days. Richard Williams didn’t let them play junior events, he just talked them up nonstop and ran them out for display now and then for a few sets with Chris Evert or some other tennis luminary to whet our appetite. He cried racism from early on in his daughters’ career and though the sisters have no doubt suffered from exactly that, as recently as this year Richard called Evert and Tracy Austin “white trash” and said that Venus and Serena will never be accepted in tennis.

Despite all that, I do plan to watch Serena and Venus if they play in the final because it’s the first time they’ve played in a slam since 2005 and Serena beat Venus in the last two finals they played here. If both players are on, it’ll be a killer of a match and I’ll always watch something like that.

The United Kingdom had been waiting for the match between Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon and when it arrived, it was better than anyone expected.

I only managed to pick three of the eight quarterfinalists at Wimbledon but who knew that Marat Safin would be here for the second week of Wimbledon and Novak Djokovic would not.

I did get two picks correctly, I’m proud to say: Marin Cilic beat Paul-Henri Mathieu in the third round and Andy Murray rallied from two sets down to beat Richard Gasquet in the fourth round, and that’s where we’ll spend all our time today because, so far, it comes closest to matching the sports hysteria we saw in Euro Cup 2008. The people of the United Kingdom are a happy bunch tonight and rightly so.

After Murray saved the first break point of the match at 3-4 in the first set, Gasquet hit one of his wondrous backhands down the line and out of reach. That backhand is a pain in the butt. Gasquet wraps the racket around his head in the backswing without telegraphing the direction of the shot. That same motion can also turn into a drop shot and he has no trouble whatsoever picking up slices and other low lying grass court balls and turning them into winners.

Murray saved the game with two drop shots – no surprise there – but it’s Gasquet who’s applying all the pressure and it’s hard to see how drop shots will stand up to hard flat winners on grass.

With Murray serving to stay in the set at 5-6, he hit a few errors and a double fault to give Gasquet two set points. He saved the first one and on the second, Gasquet hit another backhand down the line followed up by a drop shot. It took forever but Murray got there and put the ball away then launched into his own version of Llleyton Hewitt’s fist pumping lawn mower celebration. On his third set point, Gasquet got to the net again – see a pattern here? – and hit a volley that sent Murray scampering one way then the other and ended with Murray hitting a running backhand passing shot that sent Gasquet into a futile dive. Murray celebrated with his home crowd while Gasquet lay sprawled on the court.

Gasquet finally cashed in on his fourth set point as Murray sent a drop volley wide but you can see the huge and obvious difference between these two young and talented players: Murray relishes the opportunity to get his home town fired up while Gasquet would rather toil under more low-key conditions. And Murray has the greater pressure by far. Gasquet has all kinds of French tennis players to share his tennis wunderkind burden with and Murray has only 242nd ranked Alex Bogdanovic.

Gasquet got another break point on Murray’s first service game in the second set when Murray fooled around with a cute approach shot that went into the net. Gasquet got the break to go up 2-0 and held onto the break to take a two sets to none lead. Serving at 2-2 in the third set, Murray faced another break point and saved it with an ace. He fought off two more break points with serve and volley tennis – a much better strategical response than those cutesy drop shots. If Murray wasn’t going to hit a few hammer backhands down the line himself, at least he could get to the net.

Murray won that game and the United Kingdom let out a huge sigh of relief but the Kingdom was still a bit worried about their boy. Could he actually play aggressively when he really needed to? Not quite. He held his serve in fits and starts and fought off more break points until he finally gave out to go down another break at 4-5 in a game which he started off with another cute shot into the net.

Gasquet now served for the match and Murray finally hit a few solid ground strokes and broke Gasquet for the first time. I’m tempted to say that Murray had hung around just long enough for Gasquet to start making errors. After hitting only three errors in each of the first two sets, Gasquet hit nine in the third and one of them was a double fault on that break point. But it wasn’t quite like that. Murray fought off more break points to hold in the next game and Murray’s resolve seemed to deflate Gasquet.

Gasuet hit two errors in succession to go down 0-3 in the third set tiebreaker. He fought back but then came the coup de grace and it was one of the best shots I’ve ever seen. On his first set point, Murray hit a short return that pulled Gasquet to the net. Murray followed that up with a short response and Gasquet hit a volley at such a sharp angle that Murray ended up teetering on the edge of the stands by the time the point was over. Before he got there, though, he flicked a backhand that went well behind Gasquet and ended up almost in the middle of the court.

I can’t remember anyone so visibly and expressively lift himself and everyone else in a stadium as Murray did in those last few games. If we end up looking at a very successful career when he retires, the image of his upturned howling head and the tangible desire after every saved break point will end up characterizing him as a player. And the comparison is compelling because here is Gasquet, who is just recovering from a bout of “why am I out here?” giving away a two set lead to someone who would never think to ask such a question.

Murray kept rolling. He broke Gasquet to go up 2-1 in the fourth set and actually started scorching a few ground strokes. He broke Gasquet one more time to win the set 6-2 but Gasquet didn’t go away. He fought off four break points before giving up a break in the first game of the fifth set and he fought off four more break points in the set. But he couldn’t break back and Murray had come through. This was the feature match as far as his home crowd was concerned and Murray not only got there but he played the match of his life to win it.

After Murray won the last point of the match, he lifted his sleeve and showed off his noticeable right bicep just to remind everyone that his strength and conditioning are just fine, thank you very much. Gasquet complained about the crowd noise and the dying light in the fifth set in what was a show of frustration more than anything, but his recovery is going well and I’d like to think that he’ll mature into his prodigious talent just as Murray seems to be figuring out how to play this game. If so, then we’ve just seen a preview of a rivalry waiting for us when the current Wimbledon rivalry has passed.

Allya Kudryavtseva, Janko Tipsarevic, and Zheng Jie wiped out their top ten opponents at Wimbledon.

Maria Sharapova was down 2-5 and serving to stay in the first set when she looped a high forehand to her opponent, Alla Kudryavtseva. Kudryavtseva took the looper and slammed it for a winner. What was Sharapova doing footsying around when she was barely hanging in the match? On the next point she unaccountably sent a routine backhand wide to give Kudryavtseva a set point.

It seems to me that I asked this question earlier this week – was it during the Marat Safin/Novak Djokovic match? I think so. I think it came after Djokovic managed to break Safin only to slide back into oblivion and lose the third set, and match, with very little of his trademark fight or orneriness. So here’s that question again: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

Here’s the answer: there’s a disease going round this year’s version of Wimbledon. The disease renders its victims incapable of finding rhythm on grass and, in the more seriously afflicted, strangely unable to dredge up their fighting spirit. Djokovic and Sharapova are known as fighters above all else.

On set point, Sharapova hit a hard serve right on the service line – unusual enough in itself because she’d already had five double faults by this time – and Kudryavtseva shanked the ball. Unfortunately the shanked ball turned into a wicked drop shot that took Sharapova wide and Kudryavtseva had the first set.

The origin of the disease isn’t hard to track down. Kudryavtseva could have coughed up that point. Balls that bounce off the chalk and die on the grass can throw off your rhythm, but it’s the lower ranked players who are dealing well with the conditions, not the top ten players. Take double faults for instance: Kudryatseva had three of them in the first game of the second set and went down a break immediately but it didn’t seem to throw her game off.

She kept going for shots and played more than credible defense – not a skill that Sharapova has in spades and also the slightest hint that these younger players have, if not an all-round game, more than enough power and defense to knock off anyone. And they’re not shy either. Check out this exchange between the 154th ranked Kudryavtseva and a journalist at her post-match media session:

Q. How significant was it, especially to beat Sharapova?
ALLA KUDRYAVTSEVA: It’s very pleasant to beat your — you know, Maria.

Q. Why?
ALLA KUDRYAVTSEVA: Why? Well, I don’t like her outfit. Can I put it this way?

Whoa, throw down some smack why don’t you? Meanwhile, Sharapova kept hitting double faults as if she was suffering from a group hysteria brought on by the trauma of the depth and breadth of competition in tennis today. And it isn’t just coming from the younger players.

Janko Tipsarevic is 24 years old and just keeps getting better. Tipsarevic pushed Roger Federer to 10-8 in the third set at the Australian Open before losing and this week he went one better by winning the last three sets of his match with Andy Roddick. Roddick hasn’t looked good here. His shoulder isn’t 100%, true enough, but he hasn’t gone past the quarterfinals at Wimbledon since 2006 and grass is his best surface.

Zheng Jie thrashed number one ranked Ana Ivanovic, 6-1, 6-4, and Ivanovic was defending semifinal points. Ivanovic already had the disease: but for a fortuitous net cord, she should have lost to 97th ranked Natalie Dechy. Zheng is ranked number 133 herself but she’s been as high as number 27. She missed the second half of last year with an ankle injury.

I’m looking around to see if there are any other upsets on the horizon. Who’s left in the top five? David Ferrer went out to Mario Ancic but that wasn’t much of an upset, so Federer is the next best guess because no one is steamrolling Nadal. Marion Ancic beat Federer on grass in 2002.

It couldn’t happen again, right?