I never recapped the end of the French because everything went quite predictably after the quarterfinals. One comment I would like to make is that it would be nice to see Federer play at his best in the final there, or at least deliver his A-/B+ game, because the last two years we’ve gotten his B-/C+ game in the finals. Nonetheless, he is still a legend, and has had far more clay success than Sampras, who made the semi’s just once in Paris.

The grasscourt season opened with a bang, as unheralded 25 year old journeyman Nicolas Mahut from France, ranked 76 in the world, not only upset Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals of the Queen’s Club Wimbledon tune-up, but also held a championship point in the finals vs. Andy Roddick. He lost the match 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, but shocked the tennis world nonetheless, as he also beat 2006 Wimbledon semifinalist Jonas Bjorkman, Ivan Ljubicic, and his veteran countryman Arnaud Clement, who himself made the 4th round at Wimbledon in both 2001 and ’02 (and had impressive wins last week over Ivo Karlovic and Novak Djokovic). Amazingly, Mahut still had to qualify this week for Wimbledon and did so, not dropping a single set in the process. Also at Queen’s Club, 18 year old Croatian Marin Cilic made a nice splash, beating Tim Henman in the 1st round and getting to the quarterfinals before falling to Roddick 6-3, 7-6. Roddick beat the hard hitting Dmitry Tursunov in the semi’s 6-4, 7-5. Tursunov’s game of hard, flat groundstrokes and big serves should translate to success at Wimbledon this year.

Meanwhile, at the Gary Weber Open last week, also on grass, Thomas Berdych defeated 2006 Wimbledon semifinalist Marcos Baghdatis in the final 7-5, 6-4. It’s nice to see Berdych come back strong on grass after his poor effort in Paris where he went down in the 1st round. Berdych is another young player whose tall stature and hard groundstrokes bode well for his chances during the Wimbledon fortnight – he lost in the 4th round there last year. Jarkko Nieminen and Philipp Kohlschreiber were the semifinalists. Look for a full Todd’s Tennis Takes Wimbledon preview on Monday. The draw comes out Friday, here’s the link:

http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/draws/ms/index.html