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.

Sign up and join our subleague! It’s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.

This week’s submission deadline is Sunday morning, May 18, 4am (EST) in the U.S./10am (CET) in Europe.

There are three tournaments this week: Poertschach, Casablanca, and Dusseldorf. Dusseldorf is a team event so it’s not included in the fantasy game. We’ll be picking players from the Poertschach and Casablanca only.

Poertschach draw (clay, first prize: $90,923)

Casablanca draw (clay, first prize: $90,923)

Poertschach starts tomorrow – which explains the Sunday morning submission deadline – but Casablanca doesn’t start till Monday so their draw was just posted. Speaking of draws, if you have time, check the draws again before you go to bed. Look at what happened this week: so many players dropped out of Hamburg that the tournament reseeded the draw which means that they moved people around in the draw. Two of my players ended up playing each other in the second round.

Since both Poertschach and Casablanca have the same prize money and we need eight players, let’s pick four players from each draw.

In the last five years, Nikolay Davydenko has never done worse than the quarterfinals in Poertschach and he’s won it twice. Given his penchant for losing in the first round, this is remarkable consistency for him. But should you pick him? He’s reached the semifinals at the U.S. open in the past two years and the semifinals in Roland Garros two out of the last three years. He’s also won Moscow three of the last four years and that pays $171,000 for a first prize. Save him for these three events because you can only use him five times this year.

I’ve already used Davydenko twice so let’s look for another player in his quarter. Andreas Seppi reached the semifinals this week in Hamburg so he’s my pick. Jeez, I hope he doesn’t drop out.

Jurgen Melzer is the only player who stands out in Mardy Fish’s quarter because he’s reached the quarterfinals and final here, but he’s on a six game clay losing streak dating back to Roland Garros last year. Robin Haase reached the quarterfinals at Valencia so he gets my pick.

Sam Querrey is hanging out in Ivan Ljubic’s quarter and he did reach the quarterfinals at Monte Carlo, but should you waste him on a small clay court event? Here are the pros and cons. Cons: he probably won’t win considering that Davydenko can beat him here; he’s not likely to get past the semifinals because Juan Monaco can beat him on clay too; he can pick up a semifinal or final in the smaller summer hard court tournaments and he’s already reached a quarterfinal at Cincinnati. Pros: he’s likely to go to the Olympics because Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish are staying home so that will cut down on his summer hard court schedule; he hasn’t shown anything on grass or indoor hard court yet. Oy, predicting the future is hard work! I’m taking Querrey and hoping for semifinal money at least.

The bottom quarter is a fight between Monaco and Mario Ancic. Monaco hasn’t been doing that well in the past few weeks but Ancic hasn’t either and Monaco won this tournament last year and reached the quarterfinals the year before, so he’s my choice.

Poertschach has five players in the top 50 while Casablanca has only one, so it’ll be hard to find players in the Casablanca draw since only those players in the top 100 at the beginning of the fantasy season are eligible. Curiously enough, on average, half of the top eight seeds have reached the quarterfinals in Casablanca over the past five years so it’s not as unpredictable as many larger tournaments.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is the top seed by far at number 13, but he meets up with Albert Montanes in the first round and Montanes had quarterfinals at Barcelona and Hamburg and there’s no one else in Montanes’ quarter to threaten him, so he’s my first pick.

Marc Gicquel reached the semifinals here last year and he’s 2-0 over his main competition in the quarter, Florent Serra, so Gicquel’s my second pick.

The third quarter is a mix of old and new and fallen. Younes El Aynaoui, Dominik Hrbaty, and Agustin Calleri were all top twenty players at one point but Calleri is now the only one in the top 100. Since Calleri has beaten the other top 100 players in this quarter – Peter Luczak and Oliver Patience – I’m going with Calleri.

Most players in the bottom quarter have played in challengers the past few weeks. Since Gael Monfils has the best record and he’s in the challenger final in Marrakech this week, I’m picking him.

My Picks

Here are my fantasy picks for this week: Seppi, Haase, Querrey, Monaco. Montanes, Giquel, Calleri, Monfils.

Happy fantasies!

I expected a lot of unseeded players to reach the quarterfinals in Hamburg but what were Nicolas Kiefer and Andreas Seppi doing there?

When I filed my ATP fantasy picks this week I noted that Hamburg is pretty bad about predicting its quarterfinalists. In the past five years, less that three of the top eight seeded players have reached the final eight. This year is only slightly better. The top three are there – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic – and that’s really the story of the week because a game of musical chairs could be just beginning.

Before we get to that, though, how were we supposed to know which unseeded players would go far this week? It would have been difficult enough if the tournament hadn’t reseeded the draw because five players dropped out. James Blake ended up in one corner of the draw instead of Andy Roddick who hurt his back moving into his new apartment in New York – can’t he afford movers?

You might think Nicolas Kiefer was a good choice because he’s German but he had a losing record on clay before this week and a bad record at Hamburg. Italian Andreas Seppi makes more sense because he reached the quarterfinals here as a qualifier three years ago, but his fellow Italian, Simone Bolelli, was in his part of the draw and beat him in Munich on clay only two weeks ago.

Still, here they were, Kiwi and Seppi in the quarterfinals at Hamburg and Kiwi was up a break on Seppi at 4-2 in the third set and working on going up two breaks when he argued against a service winner that landed on the inside of the service line. He was clearly trying to rile up his home crowd. After getting a break point on the next point, he made a point of clearing the service line then flashing a look at the chair umpire.

Kiwi is doing a second act on the tennis circuit. He missed half of last year due to knee surgery and when he returned we had a warmer fuzzier version of the formerly crusty grumpy Kiwi. He used to be the kind of guy who would get mad at his opponent for making a good shot. He’s still feisty but now it takes the form of getting angry at line calls.

Kiwi didn’t get that second break of serve but he did serve for the match at 5-4 and, unfortunately, chose the worst time to play a terrible game. I couldn’t help having the slightest touch of pleasure that Kiwi lost that game if only because of his attitude is still annoying. But which is better, a grumpy guy who brings you some on court entertainment and variety in his game – Kiwi – or a grinder who is a nice but has very little variety and shows almost no emotion on the court – Seppi?

This wasn’t a great tennis match. Clay court tennis is supposed to be all about constructing a masterful point but these two kept hitting backhand to backhand and forehand to forehand. Kiwi was the only one doing much in the way of coming to the net or using the drop shot. On one point I counted 23 backhands. Seppi seems to be constitutionally unable to change the direction of the ball. But he is steady and today that was enough because those backhands came in the game that put Seppi up 6-5 in that third set.

Okay, I did start feeling bad as Kiwi hit a double fault in the next game to give Seppi a match point. But this is clay after all, not Kiwi’s best surface, and he’d done very well to get to the quarterfinals so don’t give me too hard a time for my previous bit of ill will towards him.

Seppi hit two good passing shots to win the match and then we finally saw the emotion as he dropped to his knees. Understandable considering that he’d just won a 3 hour and 45 minute battle and pushed himself into the semifinals of a Masters Series event. There he will meet Federer which could be a gift for the current number one, or not. Seppi did lose to him in Monte Carlo last year in their only meeting, but it took Federer two tiebreakers to beat him.

Does anyone play musical chairs anymore? I haven’t played it since I was 7 or 8 years old in the small village in England where I grew up. I can still clearly see the village hall with its shiny wooden floor and rows of chairs. Every time the music stopped, we literally crawled over each other to find an empty chair and one person was left out because there was one less chair in each succeeding round. At the end, one person snatched the very last chair and they were declared the winner.

It looks like Djokovic will be the winner. Nadal didn’t win a title after the clay court season last year and he didn’t win one until the clay court season this year. He can still win Wimbledon because it’s easier on his knees and feet and the points are shorter, but I’m not looking for him to improve on hard courts. And he certainly can’t improve on clay courts.

Whether you believe it’s his Saturn return or the sheer impossibility of dominating the tour for more than three years in a row, Federer winning is no longer a sure thing. Djokovic’s ascendance to his throne probably will not happen in the immediate future because he has four slam semifinals to defend this year and that takes some luck as well as skill, but it looks like it will happen. The question is: will Djokovic wear out physically as quickly as Nadal appears to have done or will he get his full run as number one as Mr. Federer has?

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.

Sign up and join our subleague! It’s called tennisdiary.com. We send weekly email updates to all subleague members before the submission deadline.

This week’s submission deadline is Sunday morning, May 11, 4am (EST) in the U.S./10am (CET) in Europe.

I’ve been keeping track of how accurate seedings are for different tournaments by looking at how many of the top eight seeds get to the quarterfinals and Hamburg has the lowest number yet. On average, less than three of the top eight seeds have reached the quarterfinals here in the last five years so get ready for another bumpy ride this week.

In Rome we had two retirements in the semifinals which, improbably enough, did not feature Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal but did feature Andy Roddick. Oy, life is not easy for a fantasy tennis fanatic but here we go with one more Masters Series event before Roland Garros. We need to pick the quarterfinalists because we need eight players for our team. By the way, lots of players retired during matches this week so check the draw before you go to bed tonight because there could be pullouts.

Hamburg draw (clay, first prize: $553,846)

Roger Federer has an easy draw and he’s won this tournament three of the last four years so I’m going to use him for the first time this year.

In the bottom half of Federer’s quarter is the trio of Mikhail Youzhny, Nicolas Almagro, and David Ferrer. Youzhny hasn’t won a clay court match since last year. Ferrer has consistently reached the quarters here and he’s 4-0 over Almagro so he’s my choice.

In the top half of Nikolay Davydenko’s quarter, Paul-Henri Mathieu is struggling after an excellent record on clay last year. He hasn’t beaten anyone important. Stanislas Wawrinka is on a roll so it’s between him and Davydenko.

Here is where I need to think about how to use Davydenko throughout the season. For sure I’m picking him for Roland Garros, the U.S. Open, and Moscow – which he’s won the past two years and pays more than a semifinal at a Masters. And I picked him for Rome so that leaves one other tournament since I can only use him five times.

I’m going to say that Wawrinka is a bit worn out by reaching the semifinals, quarterfinals, and final at his last three tournaments and give my pick to the energizer bunny Davydenko.

In the bottom half of Davydenko’s quarter I’m going to leave Richard Gasquet alone until he gets out of his funk. That leaves me with Juan Monaco and Simone Bolelli and since we know some unseeded players will get through, I’m going with Bolelli.

Okay, do I pick Novak Djokovic now or not? I’m using him for the remaining slams and one of the summer hard court events so that leaves me one more pick. It’s unlikely that both Federer and Nadal will lose again but Djkovic can get to the semifinals if he holds up physically and he just had an easy semifinal in Rome and he’s smart, he skipped the non-Masters clay events. He beat Tommy Robredo on clay last year and Tomas Berdych has never done well here so I’m going with Djkokovic.

In the top part of Djokovic’s quarter, there’s not really a lot of choice. Berdych has been out with an ankle injury but he’s 5-0 over his first two likely opponents and unbeaten on clay against James Blake and Janko Tipsarevic so I’m going with Berdych.

Roddick and Radek Stepanek are in Nadal’s quarter of the draw. Roddick said his back hurt badly enough that he won’t be able to hit for a few days so I’m not counting on him to be here. Stepanek said he was weak and dizzy so I expect he’ll be alright and he has reached a final here. Carlos Moya has lost in the first round of his last three clay tournaments so that leaves me with Stepanek.

I’m not picking Nadal for Hamburg this week because I’m saving him for the remaining three slams and I picked him for Monte Carlo and Rome. That leaves me with Gilles Simon and Andy Murray. Simon beat Murray in Rome last year so Simon is my pick.

I picked three unseeded players – Bolelli, Stepanek, and Simon. We’ll see if that’s enough.

My Picks

Here are my fantasy tennis picks for Hamburg: Federer, Ferrer, Davydenko, Bolelli, Berdych, Djokovic, Stepanek, Murray.

Roger Federer followed Rafa Nadal out of Rome at the hands of Radek “the worm” Stepanek..

Yes, that was Radek Stepanek pumping his fist and waving a towel and doing the worm after taking Roger Federer out of Rome in straight sets, 7-6(4), 7-6(7). What is going on here? First Rafael Nadal leaves town and now, two days later, Roger is out of the quarterfinals. Did Roger take his foot off the break the slightest bit after Rafa no longer loomed ahead in the draw? Was he just that a bit discouraged because he lost an opportunity to meet Rafa on clay?

And now what do we think? Is Roger still struggling physically? Here’s what I think. Roger is okay physically. He’s back from his mono but that means he’s back to the person who lost consecutive matches to Guillermo Canas and David Nalbandian. It’s also the player who doesn’t raise his game as often as he used to and doesn’t play the big points quite as well as he did.

At least this year he made it to one more round in Rome that he did last year when he went out to Filippo Volandri in the third round. Look, he could win the French Open and I wouldn’t be surprised, I’m just saying that we’re in for a bumpy ride with Roger from now on.

When Roger gets to a tiebreaker, for instance, we expect him to step it up or, at least, the take charge on the big points. Sure enough, he did get up a mini-break in the first set tiebreaker but he gave it back on a net cord error and then Stepanek was the one who took control. Serving at 4-4, Roger had control of the point then Stepanek hit a ball down the line that Roger had to scramble for. Roger followed that up with a dipping passing shot but Stepanek dug the ball out and dumped it just over the net to win the point. He followed that up with a service winner and an ace to take the first set.

At the beginning of the second set, Roger lost his serve after shanking two backhands, a theme of the day. After the match, someone asked him why he shanked so many backhands and this was his response:

You’ve seen me so many times. It happens all the time. Something I’ve been trying to get rid of for ten years. Still not today.

Well maybe, but Stepanek had something to do with it.

Stepanek rushed the net on his serve and, sometimes, his return. He attacked Roger’s backhand and he mixed things up so well that Roger didn’t know what was coming. At one point in the second set, Stepanek wound up as if to hit yet another shot to Roger’s backhand. Instead, he hit a drop shot in the opposite direction and Roger couldn’t recover quick enough to get there.

He also took the net away from Roger by getting there first and hit a lot of backhands down the line to Federer’s forehand. The commentators made an interesting point about list last thing. Roger is more comfortable hitting his forehand while running around his backhand than he is running towards the ball. If you’re running around your backhand, you have to twist your body away from the ball to get in position so you’re already into your backswing motion. If you’re running towards the ball, you have to wind up your backswing after you get to the ball and that means you have to get there earlier.

In other words, Stepanek did the right thing at the right time. Roger’s rhythm was off and Stepanek made sure he never found it.

Still, Roger had his chances and didn’t take them. He got back on serve in the second set and even though he lost his serve a second time on another mishit backhand, he was able to break back and found himself up 5-2 in the second set tiebreaker. It looked for all the world like he’d figured out Stepanek’s game and was now ready to finish out the set and match then move on to a semifinal showdown with Novak Djokovic.

One more backhand error, though, and he gave up the minibreak. At 7-7, Stepanek hit a return then immediately moved forward and Federer put a passing shot into the net. Stepanek then hit a service winner and his victory celebration began.

Against all odds, it looks like Djokovic is the member of the big three who might end up picking up the most points in the clay court season. If he wins this event, which is a pretty good bet at this point, he’ll be closer to Nadal than Nadal is to Federer.

Djokovic reminds me of a race car driver lagging behind the leaders who keeps his car pointing straight and true as the cars in front of him bump into each other and spin out. He might just cruise across the finish line first while the leaders are strewn all over the infield.

Rafael Nadal finally gave out while trying to defend his third straight clay court title in Rome. He lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero but at least he showed up.

When we watch a tennis match, usually we’re watching it blind. What I mean is that we may have no idea whether the player is physically hurting or not. Yes, the player is out there on the court, but what ailments is he suffering and is it a small niggling problem or a big problem that’s making it hard for him to play?

If this was baseball or football, the injury report would have made its way across the blogosphere and sports radio shows and newspapers. Commentators would be discussing it on the telecast of the game. But the tennis world isn’t like that. As we watched Juan Carlos Ferrero dismantle Rafael Nadal, it looked like Ferrero was playing the match of his life. He hit behind Rafa and he attacked his forehand whenever he got a short ball and he kept his level up throughout the entire match.

But maybe he knew something we didn’t know. He might not have known that Rafa had such pain in his foot that he could barely put his foot on the ground the morning he flew to Rome. And he probably didn’t know that Rafa thought it would be impossible to play when he woke up this morning. He might have known that Rafa went to the doctor today, as he did yesterday, and had his foot taped up and anesthetized with topical cream because things do get around the locker room.

But we didn’t know anything and the commentators didn’t know anything and this is how it looked to us. Early on, Rafa looked alright. Ferrero hit a low slice on Rafa’s serve at 2-1 in the first set and Rafa managed to run around it and hit a wicked angle on a forehand winner. Rafa’s return of serve was a bit inconsistent but he was getting to drop shots.

Rafa gave up three break points for Ferrero to get to 5-4 and that was unusual but, you know, it happens. And right about that time, the commentators noted that Ferrero is really taking the game to Rafa and pushing him further behind the baseline. Two games later, Rafa hit a crosscourt forehand wide that gave Ferrero a set point. Again, unusual, but Rafa is known for hanging in tough games. Then Rafa hit some short shots and Ferrero took the game and first set and now we’re thinking that Rafa is finally wearing down from defending his third straight clay court title.

As the second set continued and Rafa started hitting more and more errors and found himself down a break at 1-4, we said that it looks like he’d run out of gas but, still, you can never count him out. Then we saw the foot.

Most tennis players have ugly feet and Rafa’s foot looked no different as it was propped up on the bench getting treatments from the trainer. First there was the topical anesthetic, then the felt ring to keep pressure off the sore area on the ball of the foot, then the roll of tape to lessen the soreness from friction, but it didn’t help. Rafa didn’t win another game as Ferrero won the match 7-5, 6-1.

If we’d known about the foot, we’d have known that Rafa was hitting balls short because he couldn’t plant his foot without pain. We might still have marveled at Ferrero’s play because it’s not easy to go against an injured opponent and it’s very easy for your mind to start thinking about the fact that you’re about to beat someone who’s almost unbeatable on clay and we all know what happens when the mind gets too involved. But we wouldn’t have said that it’s the best match we’ve ever seen Ferrero play.

Why did Rafa play this tournament if his foot was in that condition? He played it because he wants to be the number one player in the world and he had a Masters title and all the points that come with it to defend.

Why did Rafa play out the match instead of retiring at 1-4 in the second set? He played on to give Ferrero the opportunity to be the focus of the match.

I feel a bit like an old fogy because respectful sports behavior in the form of playing out a match when you’re ailing is fast becoming a thing of the past. I might just have to get over it. Rafa is old school whereas Novak Djokovic is what’s happening now. Djokovic retired in the second set of his semifinal match with Roger Federer at Monte Carlo because he had a sore throat.

True, it turned out that Djokovic had strep throat, but your throat doesn’t get sore from being dragged across the tennis court, unlike a foot, and it’s unlikely his throat would have suffered much more if he’d played three more games. There was also a psychological message to it. Djokovic was not going to give Federer an earnest victory, he was going to walk off the court to show that Federer didn’t beat him, the sore throat did.

Ferrero deserves credit for the victory and Rafa deserves credit for showing up and playing. That’s two old school players and I like that.