Oh boy is the men's draw ugly for the Tennis Masters Series event at Hamburg.

Consider these first round match-ups:
- Blake vs. Novak (a rematch of this week's quarterfinal)
- Saguinetti d. Safin (a potential upset)
- Mirnyi vs. Sampras (Sampras also has Moya lurking in his draw)
- Roddick vs. Todd Martin
- Henman vs. Escude (Escude d. Henman in Feb. to win Rotterdam)
- Lapentti vs. Federer
- Kiefer vs. Kuerten

Potential quarterfinal match-ups that are even more intriguing/exciting:
Hewitt vs. Agassi
Roddick vs. Corretja or Kafelnikov

The draw is too packed to even attempt to predict semifinal pairings, as I have no idea whether Ferrero and Haas will meet in the quarters, and who might be the victor if they do.

It's an ugly, but nice ugly, draw for sure...

The Beast has taken care of Sampras, 6-3 6-4. Anyone think Higueras is a goner?

Some results (a lot of matches already played!):
B. Phau d. A. Portas 64 62
F. Gonzalez d. C. Vinck 75 64
A. Martin d. D. Nalbandian 64 63
G. Canas d. X. Malisse 75 16 60
J. Boutter d. A. Montanes 76(2) 64
J. Chela d. M. Philippoussis 64 64
L. Hewitt d. P. Kohlschreiber 75 64
S. Koubek d. A. Dupuis 75 61
Y. El Aynaoui d. F. Santoro 76(3) 63
M. Mirnyi d. P. Sampras 63 64
C. Moya d. M. Youzhny 63 26 64
A. Corretja d. Y. Kafelnikov 61 62
T. Henman d. N. Escude 64 62

Editorial Comment: wow, does Kafelnikov SUCK these days, or what?!

Althought the Y-Man is sucking it up, I am not in the LEAST surprised at the result. Alex on clay is always going to be a force to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, Andy handled Todd Martin rather neatly today. Way to go! Tough luck with the doubles against Johnson and Palmer. Went 3 sets though...We will see if Marat can keep his head together against Davide, who will be playing defense like a male Arantxa. And what will happen with Nicky and Guga? Should be interesting.

Kuerten seemed to struggle against Kiefer - not a good sign for his next match against Pavel. But he did pull it out in straight sets, so what's to complain about?

Ferrero is no longer my favorite for Roland Garros. Talk about bad luck to draw Costa in the first round - but to be the best, you have to beat the best, right?

Some really interesting second-round matchups:

Roddick v. Schuettler: Does the German crowd actually root? They didn't seem to when the women were playing. But if they do, it will be for Schuettler, who got to the final in Munich. Andy should be able to find his game & win in three.

Gonzalez v. Canas: Canas has had an up & down year, but Gonzalez may not be ready to string together two victories. The winner faces Kuerten/Pavel.

Robredo v. Grosjean: my money's on Robredo - but again, he's a young guy who hasn't done it when it has counted. Winner of this should lose to Tommy Haas in the third.

Ferreira v. El Aynaoui: can the Moroccan finally do well in a MS event? He's got a decent draw to do some major damage. Let's go, Younes!!!

Costa is playing well, but I agree--Ferrero isn't my favorite for Roland Garros either. I don't think there really is an obvious favorite, though.

A potential Costa-El Aynaoui match-up in the next round looks very interesting.

No luck with the Costa-Younes matchup, thanks to Mr. Koubek. He is Austria's next Thomas Muster, but not quite as good for some reason. The Haas/Rboredo match in the next round could be a good one, and if they get this far, a Roddick/Corretja match would be awesome (and cute). We shall see what happens, I guess...

And apparently, no luck with the Roddick/Corretja matchup either. Although Andy had a fairly impressive win over Rainer Scheuttler (playing in front of a decidedly partisan, pro-Rainer crowd), Alex managed to somehow lose to the big-serving Julian Boutter. In fact, the big servers seem to be doing well in that quarter (with Max winning and Andy winning). We will see what happens, but I think Andy has a GREAT chance at winning that quarter, where he is likely to meet either an ailing Guga or the possibly-tired Guillermo Canas (tough call there). But then again, we all know that clay court tennis is not predictable, so we'll have to wait to see what happens.

I just want to point out that of the sixteen third-rounders, fourteen countries are represented from five continents. Yet another reason I love tennis (especially clay court tennis). Argentina has three players. The others hail from

USA (go Roddick!)
Austria
Germany
France
Spain
Brazil
Australia
Romania
Belorussia
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Morocco (go Younes!)
Russia

WOW! Also in the tourney were players from Croatia, Sweden, the UK, Ecuador, Belgium, Chile, the Netherlands, and Italy.

What accounts for this spectacular diversity among top players(probably unheard of in any other sport)? And what needs to happen to have an Asian player reach the Top 20 and consistently compete on the tour?

The Moroccan has had a great season. I think he has a decent shot here. So does Novak, if he can get by Hewitt tomorrow. At the bottom of the draw, Roddick could get to the finals. I don't see Guga advancing in his next match.

For the French, I still think Moya has a good shot. But the field is really wide open. Tommy Haas, perhaps?

With Guga still rusty, the French Open is very unpredictable this year. Andre's performance last week puts him right up there and Roddick's overall clay season puts him in the running. Several players are playing well enough to go deep into the second week but there's been no one dominant player this clay season. Guga's really been the red clay king the last couple of years. I wish Juan Carlos would get his shit together; i love watching him, and his tennis, and this should have been his year. Hewitt is no longer dominating the way he did earlier this year and the end of last...but he shows up pretty well when it comes to slams..

I wouldn't count Guga out just yet. He just took out Canas 7-5, 6-2, suggesting that he is finding his form.

OK. I have now had a couple of hours to absorb the shock of Andy's loss to JULIEN BOUTTER. Not happy about that at all. I have seen JB play. Great serve, but he's about as mobile as a three-toed sloth. Andy definitely needed to throw him a few deep slice backhands and some loopier topsin forehands. Moreover, and I LOVE Andy, but he won't go much farther until he improves his serve return. Let's see how he rebounds.

I'm very surprised to see both Boutter and Mirnyi doing so well here. Mirnyi's a good player, but I never thought of him as much of a clay-courter. I think the Hewitt/Safin and Federer/Kuerten matches will determine the final, though. My pick is Safin over Kuerten. Safin's quite good on clay--it was at the French some years ago that he first registered on my radar screen--and hasn't won anything in a while. I think he's due.

Shockingly, Federer beats Guga on clay. What's the story there? Is Guga really THAT hurt, or is he still just shaking off cobwebs? Not as shockingly, Federer defeats "the Beast" to get to the finals. He awaits the winner of the Safin/Robredo semi (probably Safin, unless he gets distracted by the extreme handsomeness of Mr. Robredo, which would certainly have a negative effect on my tennis).

Well, Guga did get by Canas & Pavel, who are both quite competent on clay, so he can't be THAT bad. Then again, Federer hits the ball very hard...maybe Guga's mobility is limited? I only saw a few points at the end of the match, so I couldn't really judge. He's certainly playing better than he was in the fall, anyway.

Well, Safin is into the final to face Federer for the title. Marat is motivated by $$$, if nothing else, so I'd pick him to win. In fact, a week ago, I was going to pick him as my favorite to win the French Open, but I realized he has won a title yet this year!

Marat and Roger have played only twice before, and Roger won both matches. They met last year on clay (at this event, actually!) and Roger won 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.

I still like Safin's chances in the final...there is a lot of $$$ on the line, he can get his first title of the year here, and a win tomorrow would be a big boost for his confidence heading into the French...

The story from Yahoo:
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news/20020518/...hambmensto.html