Yup. The preparations for Wimbledon have already begun. The best players on the women's tour are playing the DFS Classic (a.k.a. Birmingham).

There are two other events: Vienna (which is on clay) and Tashkent.

The draws!
for Birmingham, where Jelena Dokic is the top seed and Lisa Raymond, Alexandra Stevenson, and Sandrine Testud are also in the mix: http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_pdf/Bi...rmingham_02.pdf

for Vienna, where Silvia Farina Elia is the top seed in a field that includes Conchita Martinez and last year's Vienna finalists Iroda Tulyaganova (the winner) and Patty Schnyder:
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_pdf/Vienna_02.pdf

for Tashkent, where Dinara Safina is playing unseeded: http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_pdf/Ta...Tashkent_02.pdf

And...on the men's tour, it's all grass this week. Two of the biggest prep. events have already started!

Stella Artois a.k.a. Queen's Club has a great line-up, including No. 1 seed Lleyton Hewitt, No. 2 seed Tim Henman, and a host of other contenders: Wayne Arthurs, James Blake, Jan-Michael Gambill, Max Mirnyi, Mark Phillippoussis, Greg Rusedski, and Vince Spadea.
The draw is on-line here: http://www.atptennis.com/london/draws.asp

Pete Sampras has joined the field in Halle, Germany for the Gerry Weber Open. Oddly enough, Yevgeny Kafelnikov is the top seed; Roger Federer is the second seed. Thomas Johansson and Nic. Kiefer, two players who have had success here in the past, are also in the draw, along with Fabrice Santoro and a host of clay-courters hoping to make the clay-to-grass transition, including Younes El Aynaoui and Carlos Moya.
The draw is here: http://www.atptennis.com/en/newsandscores/...es/Halle/R5.asp

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: The B Man ]

What's up with Sampras withdrawing from Queen's to play Halle? Here's the quote from the Queen's spokesman:

[quote]"Whatever personal demons Pete is fighting at the moment, I suspect that, more than anything else, he feels he needs a couple of wins under his belt," Queen's director Ian Wight said. "I guess he feels those are more likely at Halle than at Queen's."

---

Wow, things must be kinda bleak in the Sampras camp nowadays.

Go Little Safina Go!

Actually, it was not a bad move by Pete. The grass in Halle is supposed to be excellent and comparable to the All England lawns. The draw there has some good players, but nobody that he cannot beat. If he can get on a little roll going into W and get a decent draw, he is in much better shape than if he plays at Queens and gets bounced earlier.

Plus, Pete has never fared that well at Queens. For his grass-court mastery, he has only 2 titles and 2 runner-up finishes in the last ten years. When you see what he does at the Big W, this has been an underachievement.

I think the Queen's Club staff were upset, because Pete had asked them specifically to hold a wildcard spot for him in the draw. Going to Halle is a bit of a snub for the tournament.

Great Wimbly news!

Phillippoussis is IN via a Wild Card! Even better news: Natasha Zvereva has been given a Wild Card, as well!

The full story from Yahoo!: http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news/ap/200206...-wildcards.html

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: The B Man ]

you're right. past years, the players have complained about the conditions at Queens (courts and weather) Halle is a much better warm up in many levels for Pete. Go Petey!

I simply cannot wait for Wimbledon. The moment when that first ball is struck and echoes throughout the stadium while the Centre Court grass is so pristine and lush is just so special.

[quote]Originally posted by charliecstl:
Actually, it was not a bad move by Pete. The grass in Halle is supposed to be excellent and comparable to the All England lawns. The draw there has some good players, but nobody that he cannot beat. If he can get on a little roll going into W and get a decent draw, he is in much better shape than if he plays at Queens and gets bounced earlier.

---

My admittedly cynical guess is that Sampras got offered a bigger guarantee by the Halle folks.

Two very interesting matches in progressing right now.

At STELLA ARTOIS (Queen's Club), Rusedski and Philippoussis are in a dog-fight. Rusedski won the first set 7-6 (7-1) but Flip won the second 7-6 (7-3). The third set score: Rusedski leads 5-4.

At HALLE's GERRY WEBER OPEN, Sampras lost the first set to Andrei Stoliarov 4-6, but won the second set 6-3 and leads in the third 4-2...

Verrrry interesting...

Rusedski d. Scud, 7-6 (7-5) in the third. Greg won the last three points of the match.

So far this week, US men are doing VERY well on grass. Among the winners at Stella Artois:

Robby Ginepri upset Paradorn Srichaphan, 15th seed
Mardi Fish (Qualifier) over Andre Sa
Todd Martin over Ramon Delgado
Jeff Morrison over Andrew Ilie
Cecil Mamiit over Jamie Delgado (Mamiit, though, lost to Malisse in the second round)
Michael Russell over Bachelot
Gambill beat Michael Chang (true, another American)
Mike Brian (Qualifier) over Cedric Pioline
Vince Spadea over Michael Llodra

Next round features Martin v. Morrison, Gambill v. Bryan, and Blake v. Spadea, guaranteeing three to five Americans in the Round of 16. Why can't the grass-court season be longer?!

Meanwhile, Tu & Osterloh both won their first-round matches at Birmingham.

Score correction:
Mark Philippoussis d. Greg Rusedski, 6-7, 7-6, 7-6

I reported the wrong score before (because, and I swear this is true, the info. I read on-line was totally wrong!)

This is a grrreat win for Flip.

Anyone read Sampras' response to the Queens director "personal demons" remark: "He's done a good job of making sure I won't come back."

It only reinforces my opinion of Sampras.

For me, Wimbledon will always be Borg's court anyway. He still looks pretty good too.


http://www.hellomagazine.com/2002/06/10/borg/

I feel sad. Lindsay Davenport pulled out of Eastbourne and Wimbledon. She's still not ready to come back yet.

Yeah Lev, LD is going to be missed. She is one that can take out a Williams sister or two!

GO MONICA!!! Not her best surface, but miracles CAN happen!

I'm expecting a very dull Wimbledon on the women's side this year. Venus' big serve makes her so tough on grass and Serena's performance has finally caught up with her colossal ego. If Seles & Cap can't handle Les Williams on clay, they certainly won't on grass. With Davenport missing, the only way Venus & Serena will lose (other than to each other) is if they have a horrible serving day against somebody with a great return of serve, and preferably, someone who can serve & volley a little. Maybe Justine Henin, on a perfect day.

The men's side should be much more fun. My bet is the top three seeds will be Agassi, Henman and Sampras (not necessarily in that order). I think that's a major diss to Hewitt and Safin, but I'm betting that's what they do, even if Hewitt wins his third straight Queen's. Any of those five could win (though Safin's a long shot, and I don't really believe in Sampras). Federer is a possibility, too.

Wow JC, bold predictions. Would they really diss the #1 player like that? The best Hewitt's done at W is the Round of 16, but he did win Queens twice, beating Sampras and Henman in the two finals.

This is fun. First, a list of the top 8 in the ATP Entry System ...

1. Hewitt
2. Safin
3. Haas (Tommy Haas is #3???)
4. Agassi
5. Henman
6. Kafelnikov
7. Johansson
8. Costa
notable: Sampras is #13

and then my Wimbledon seeding predictions ...

1. Hewitt
2. Safin
3. Agassi
4. Henman
5. Haas
6. Sampras
7. Kafelnikov
8. Federer

With all the stink that the Spaniards have made, I predict they won't drop too far down from their Entry System rankings (e.g., Cost at 8 and Ferrero at 9 will get dropped down to 10 & 11). Still, I have no sympathy for them. They argue that Pete Sampras was always seeded first at Roland Garros despite his lousy record, but Sampras is really the exception amongst grass court players. The likes of Krajicek, Rafter, Henman, and Ivanisevic are all decent to excellent clay-courters, whereas there hasn't been a decent dirtballer at W since Bjorn Borg. I say the Spaniards should shut their traps and let their rackets do the talking.

I've re-thought this, and I guess I'd forgotten sampras was still #6 in the world last year when they gave him the #1 seed. I'll shift him down to #5...but I think Agassi will definitely be seeded ahead of Safin. Probably Henman as well, since safin has never done well there, and they moved Henman up at least five spots last year. Still not convinced they'll pick Hewitt at #1-- it didn't look like they gave much thought to other grass court events.

My guess:
1. Agassi
2. Hewitt
3. Henman
4. Safin
5. Sampras (but it wouldn't shock me totally if they moved Pete all the way up to #4 so as to avoid him hitting one of the big guns before the semis)

On the subject of grass courters at Roland Garros...I don't know about those guys being "decent to excellent" clay courters. Henman has never made it past the 3rd round at the French, and Ivanisevic has made it out of the first round only once since '94.

I don't know that they're really any better than Guga on grass (who reached the quarters a few years back, but has skipped the last couple Wimbledons.)

Perrhaps I was stretching it a bit. None of the players I mentioned are excellent clay-courters, but I still insist that they're all passable to good on the surface. Rafter, finalist at Rome and semifinalist at RG, is definitely a good dirtballer. Looking at the rest ...
Ivanisevic: I think his head is more the problem on clay (as opposed to the other surfaces?), because Ivo's groundies are very solid. SF in Monte Carlo, F in Hamburg, 3xSF and 1xF in Rome, R16 and 2xQF at Roland Garros. While his record on clay is inconsistent, it's about as inconsistent as his record on every other surface, so his seeding should be the same as his ranking.
Krajicek: SF in Monte Carlo, F in Rome, SF at Roland Garros, and winner of the <sarcasm> extremely prestigious event </sarcasm> in Verona.
Henman: probably the weakest of the bunch, but still not horrible. A couple of QF showings at Monaco and Hamburg until his SF in Monaco this year.

Guga is the exception with a QF at Wimbledon, but can you think of another dirtballer besides Bjorn Borg who had a decent showing at W? Mats Wilander won Paris three times and did make it to the Wimbledon QF, but he won so many hard court titles (including the U.S. Open) that Wilander was "just a clay-courter".

Take a look at the Spaniards. Alex Corretja had won a grand total of THREE career matches on grass before raising a big stink about the seedings (yeah, that boycott brought The All England Club to its knees). Both of this year's Roland Garros finalists have notched just two wins on grass lifetime. Moya has done OK on grass, horrible showings at Wimbledon, but he did make the semis of Halle once. Notice that you don't hear him complaining about the seedings.

Seems to be a major upset in the making at Halle. Nic. Kiefer is up on Sampras 6-3, 5-2... The ATP site has been rather unreliable in the past, and the official Gerry Weber site doesn't have an update, either...

This would be a HUGE win for Nic Kiefer (who I totally adore...) and a major set-back for Sampras.

Kiefer has done quite well on grass. He's one of these baseliners with a dangerous service return and he used to have a pretty good serve, too...such a cutie, too. Hard to believe that a few years ago he seemed a more promising player than Tommy Haas.

I've always believed in Nic Kiefer. Really!

Kiefer did win the match, defeating Sampras 6-3, 6-4. In three attempts, Nic had never beaten Sampras before.

Nic Kiefer reached the quarters at Wimbledon in his first appearance there, way back in 97. Since then, Kiefer has reached the quarters in Oz (98 and 00) and at the US Open (also in 00).

Following the Johansson-Costa formula, we might start thinking about Nic Kiefer as a threat at Wimbledon!

The Halle update, including Kiefer's win over Sampras:
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news/ap/200206...yweberopen.html

Big Sampras "upsets" are getting so frequent that I've long since become inured. Hey, if somebody's going to beat my fave player, at least let it be somebody as gorgeously cute as Keifer! I hope he goes on to win the tournament.

Anybody else feeling like "upsetting" Samras is getting about as significant as "upsetting" Wilander at the end of his career?

I always thought Kiefer looked like Bud Bundy from Married With Children, personally. But what a nice win for him.

Poor Petey.

Kiefer is a total teutonic babe with a 6-pack of death. mmmmmmmm!!!!

Yeh, I guess one could argue that it isn't an "upset" any more to beat Sampras; I'd actually agree with such an argument if we were talking about any surface other than GRASS.

Sampras is 100-18 lifetime on grass. In fourteen years, he's lost just 18 matches.

Since 1999, however, when Sampras was 12-0 on grass courts, Sampras has lost 4 grass court matches:
- the final of Queen's Club in 2000 to Hewitt
- the semifinal of Queen's Club in 2001 to Hewitt
- the Rd of 16 at Wimbledon to Federer
- today's second round match at Halle to Kiefer
(note: I'm not including his Davis Cup loss to Corretja in these stats)

While I'd love to see the adorable Mr Kiefer win Wimbledon, unless he can topple Federer in the semis, I'm not convinced he's really returned to form. Although he did beat Kafelnikov a couple weeks ago (then again, who didn't?).

Interesting quarterfinal matchup in Birmingham today: Clarisa Fernandez vs Lisa Raymond. It will be interesting to see if the French Open phenom can cement her position as an up and coming player against a tough serve-and-volleyer on grass.

Hewitt and Martin had a great match (at least that's how it seemed following on-line). Martin hung tough, but Hewitt prevailed with a 7-6, 7-5 win.

Lisa Raymond won her quarterfinal match today when Clarisa Fernandez had to retire; Raymond was up 4-2 in the first set. Dokic got thru to the semi's earlier by beating Danilidoui in three close sets. Myskina and Maleeva are in a third set right now.

Kiefer and Federer are into the semi's at Gerry Weber (so is Kafelnikov...)

Keifer is a cutie, but i don't know how i feel about his nickname, "Kiwi". I guess he's also a bit of an aspiring actor. An old article i dug up talks about him playing a vampire in a German commercial. While that may conjur a fun image or two temper it with this quote from the last bit of the article.
[quote]And while he fulfills many of his ambitions, Kiefer would like to continue his acting career. "I like the Backstreet Boys," he explained. "I would like to meet them and perhaps be in one of their music videos." With Nicolas Kiefer, anything is possible

---

Granted, the article is from 2000, but his taste in men, i mean music, is suspect.

Holy crap! Kiefer took out Federer 4-6 6-4 6-4. Maybe he really has found his game again!

Dokic d. Raymond at Birmingham. Dokic will face Anastasia Myskina, who's been having a great year, in the Birmingham final.

Tulyaganova and Smashnova will square off in the final of Vienna.

On the men's side, Hewitt is thru to the final at Queen's Club. He'll face the winner of Henman vs. Sluiter.

At Halle, Kiefer is through to the final, as mentioned before. He awaits the winner of Kafelnikov vs. Carlsen; those two men are in a third set right now.

It's a sad state of affairs in Sampras fandom when one is more surprised at a lower-ranked player's victory over Roger Federer than over Pete Sampras, but I must confess that the Federer result actually surprised me more, even though Federer has nowhere near the grass-court resume. Well, best of luck to Kiefer the Cutie. If he keeps playing this well, that means we'll get to see a lot more of this Teutonic hottie.

About Eastbourne, Martina N. will open against Tatiana Panova. Panova, a Russian, ain't no slouch... Should be an interesting match.

Anna K. will play Rita Grande
Mary Pierce will face Ai Sugiyama

The top four seeds are Dokic, Testud, Hantuchova, and Farina Elia. I'm very, VERY interested to see how well Hantuchova plays...

The scoop is here (but unfortunately, no draw yet...):
http://www.britannicasset.com/LTA/PressAre...ussian+test.htm

I was slightly puzzled by one of the news reports about Kiefer's win over Federer that described Kiefer as "stocky". Maybe compared to Guga, but unless he's a lot bigger than last time I saw him play, that's a curious choice of description...he's listed on the ATP site as 6', 177 lbs. Maybe it's a misprint and it was supposed to read sexy?

Dokic won Birmingham 2 and 3 over Myskina.

Henman is up a set (6-4) on Hewitt in the final at Queen's.

Kiefer leads Kafelnikov 6-2, 4-4.

Looking to be a beautiful day in tennis if you ask me...

The s'-Hertogenbosch draw is out (avail. at the tournament website here: http://www.ordina-open.nl/)

There are not many marquee players in the draw, and we still get first round match-ups like Hewitt vs. Chang and Krajicek vs. Federer. There is no way Krajicek vs. Federer should be a first round match, but I guess we need to chalk it up to BAD luck of the draw...

Also playing: Mikhail Youzhny, Arnaud Clement, Guillermo Canas (who lost the final last year to Hewitt), and Tommy Robredo

On the women's side, it's a pretty clear set up for a Clijsters vs. Henin rematch of last year's final. Elena Dementieva, Miriam Oremans, Maggie Maleeva, Eleni Danilidou, Amelie Mauresmo, and Elena Bovina are also in the draw...

Holy JINX!

I spoke waaaay too soon. Hewitt is now up on Henman in their second set, 5-0. Damn!

Kafelnikov ended up winning the second set of the Halle final, 6-4.

D'oh!

I want both Henman and Kiefer to win. If only one does win, though, I want it to be Kiefer...

The Eastbourne draw is out! Check it out here:
http://www.britannicasset.com/LTA/Tourname...information.htm

Dokic and Kournikova could meet in the third round, but Anna K. would need to get thru Meghann Shaughnessy first (and saying that assumes Anna will win her first round match vs. Rita Grande)

Chanda Rubin has a tough but winnable quarter: she starts against 8th seeded Tammy Tanasugarn. Tough match. If Chanda wins, she's likely to face Magui Serna, who lost in last year's final to Lindsay Davenport. This is very winnable. Next would be Silvia Farina Elia, or the winner of Schiavone/Coetzer... This could be an excellent opportunity for Chanda Rubin!

In what is a really ROTTEN turn of events, Tulyaganova faces Smashnova in the first round. What makes this suck hardcore is that Tulyaganova and Smashnova just played TODAY!!! In the Vienna final today, Smashnova beat Tulyaganova 4 and 1.

The winner of this rematch gets Alexandra Stevenson. Next up: the winner of NAVRATILOVA vs. HANTUCHOVA. Wow. That's a dream match. Tennis History vs. Tennis Future.

The last quarter is stacked. Schnyder vs. Myskina, Sugiyama vs. Pierce, Kremer vs. Dechy, and Sandrine Testud.

All around, I think this is an excellent draw! A hot young player can win this thing in pretty dramatic fashion, OR, a veteran like Chanda Rubin or Mary Pierce may use this opportunity to fully launch a comeback...

The Krajicek/Federer first-rounder is only happening because Richard has played practically no tennis for nearly a year. His shoulder or elbow (or knee or something) has been bothering him for a while. (His frame seems to cause him an unlimited number of physical ailments. Good thing he got a Wimbledon under his belt when he did.) Therefore, he probably needed to wild card into the event (it is being played in his home country, and he does have a great grass court game when he is in form).

Krajicek has been out for more than a year and a half, so he's not even ranked. He's also over 30. I'm doubtful that he'll be able to regain form at this point.

Damn!
What a SUCK day in tennis.

Hewitt eventually prevailed against Henman, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.

Ditto Kafelnikov/Kiefer. Yevgeny won 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. GROAN...

Blech! I can't stand Kafelnikov, especially after his "Sampras should retire" comments (take a good look in the mirror, pal). And to think he won over my little cutie-pie, Kiefer ... double blech!!

I'm not a big Hewitt fan, but you have to respect what he's done in the game. When he was coming up, I never thought he'd be the dominating player that he's become. It's great for the game to see a player dominate with speed, consistency, and competitive drive instead of just brute force. It might be a bit of a blessing in disguise for Henman. With the immense pressure that he's under at Wimbledon, the heat would get turned up a few notches if he had beaten the #1 player at the big warmup turnament.

I think it's really tough for pure serve-and-volleyers to beat Hewitt. If he knows you're going to go for the net on every serve, you have to serve brilliantly or he'll nail you way too often on the returns. I know baseliners don't win Wimbledon often, but I think Hewitt ought to be the favorite going in.

I really was hoping Kiefer would win...I keep hoping to be able to declare confidently that Kafelnikov is no longer a threat. Oh, well, at least Kiefer's on the map again as a dangerous floater in the draw at Wimbledon.

I wonder why Tulyaganova plays Vienna instead of Birmingham. She has a huge serve, so you'd think she'd do ok on grass if she got more practice on it. Yet another tournament win for Smashnova.

At s'-Hertogenbosch, Federer d. Krajicek, 6-2, 7-5.

It's good that Krajicek is back, but this is a disappointing (although not unexpected) result.

Did Martina play today? I can't any results anywhere.

The Wimbledon seeds were announced today.
Sampras is at #7. I think it's fair but supposedly its his lowest seeding ever.

As usual the ladies rankings are based on the WTA Tour rankings.

Interesting results so far today:

Navratilova and Panova are tied at Eastbourne. Panova leads 1-6, 6-4, 1-0

Jonas Bjorkman leads Andy Roddick 7-5, 6-5 at the Samsung Event

Hewitt needed two tie-breaks to beat Chang at s'-Hertogenbosch