Mmm, Safin

So it's going to be a pretty dull week, tennis-wise, it seems... at least until the Olympics start on Friday. The only men's tournament going on is in LA, and it's a pretty small one - which is as you would expect, I suppose, what with them Olympics. The one player I'll be following is Safin, who seems to be doing okay so far - he and Igor Kunitsyn took out a pretty decent doubles duo in Ker and Soares. So good work, boys... for what it's worth.

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Actually, this might be Marat's big chance. It's pretty awful, but with all the big guys over at the Olympics, he might stand a decent chance of winning his first title since 2005. Wouldn't that be nice? Right after his little sister won the women's US Open series... (which means that if she wins the US Open she'll win an obscene amount of money - something like two and a half million dollars.) So let's have a bit of a look at the LA draw... Marat's a seed! How cool is that!? He's now ranked #38 in the world, which means all he has to do is scrape a few more places and he can be seeded at the US Open. Which means he can't repeat his Wimbledon feat and remove Djokovic early, but I suppose we can't have everything.

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So Marat faces Isner in the first round, which could be a tough one... but I think I have a tendency to overestimate Isner, Kohlschreiber-style. So let's say Marat comes through that... he'll face the winner of Odesnik and Reynolds, then he'd be seeded to meet Lopez in the quarters, then probably Roddick. Heavy on the Americans, this draw.

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Actually, let's look at the seeds. Roddick, who wussed out on the Olympics. Verdasco, whom I presume got edged by the rest of the Spaniards - Nadal, Ferrer, Robredo, et al. Del Potro - why is he not at the Olympics? - then Lopez, who I presume is another Spanish reject. Then Safin, Fish, Moya and Haas. Oh, Carlos... he's finally taken a bit of a slide down the rankings. All the way to #41... which isn't that bad, I suppose. Still, this isn't the best field ever. Though to be fair, it's really not the worst either. I would have pegged a lot of these guys - especially the Spaniards - as Olympic contenders. But when you come from a country with a deep pool, like Spain, I suppose there always have to be sacrifices.

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Though if we're looking at it that way, where are the French guys? We have Serra, Grosjean and Gicquel in the draw, but you'd think there'd be more... though I suppose that with Tsonga out and Gasquet whimpering under the bed, they don't have their top TOP guys at the Olympics, so someone has to pick up the slack.

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And there are no women's tournaments at all, so I can't revert to my old standby there... so we're going to be following LA this week. But I can't promise we'll follow it with much passion. Except for Safin matches. Because, mmm, Safin.

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Today's Results

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Countrywide Classic (Los Angeles)

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Denis Gremelmayr def. Fabio Fognini, 6-4 6-2

Florent Serra def. Andrey Golubev, 6-4 6-1

Marc Gicquel def. Zack Fleishman, 6-3 6-0