One upset on the day – remember, an upset here is any result that disagrees with my pick. Just when I thought the tall one was ready to roll into the semis – I was looking forward to seeing six-foot-ten Ivo Karlovic play five-foot-five Olivier Rochus – Jurgen Melzer interfered.

Rochus and Karlovic have played each other four times. Rochus is ahead 3-1 in the series but what is really, really strange is that Rochus beat Karlovic on hard court twice, grass (!) once, and lost his only match to Karlovic on clay. O.k., the clay court match was in a futures tournament in 2000 but the grass court match was last year in Nottingham. How did that happen? Karlovic’s serve should have rocketed past the outstretched arms of the small one.

I already had Rochus through to the final and I’ll stick with it but I’m nervous about this pick because Melzer has a 3-2 record over Rochus and won the two matches on clay. But both clay victories were in his home country of Austria and Rochus is ranked forty points higher. That should count for something.

By rights, Carolos Moya should easily beat Davidenko. Moya has won a title at Monte Carlo, Estoril, Barcelona, and Rome and has a 4-0 record against Davydenko, including three matches on clay. Oh, and then there was that French Open title in 1998. Meanwhile, this is Davydenko’s fourth clay court tournament of the year and it’s the first time he’s gone past the second round. Still, Moya is not a sure thing any more on any surface and I think this might be the day that Davydenko gets his first victory in the series.

Kristof Vliegen beat Jarkko Nieminen in the first round at Monte Carlo but Nieminen got to the quarterfinals in Barcelona – where he lost to Rafael Nadal. I have no idea who’s going to win but I’ll keep Nieminen in the finals only because I’m too lazy to change my pick.

By the way, there is an ATP injury list here. You’ll notice that there are twenty-five injuries labeled as unknown including three for Raemon Sluiter and one for Tommy Haas. Can you imagine a baseball player going on the injured list with an unknown injury? Does the ATP have any control over players pulling out of tournaments or is “unknown” now an acceptable injury category?

(names in blue are my predictions)
ESTORIL OPEN

BMW OPEN – MUNICH