Three tournaments were played on clay this week in the lead up to Madrid, which will be played on blue clay.  Madrid and Rome are two Masters 1000 events and are back-to-back events.

The three events are Munich, Estoril, and Belgrade.  Let’s start with Belgrade.  Normally, this is the Novak Djokovic tournament.  He has won it a few times, but this year, due to the death of his grandfather, he gave his own tournament a pass.  So did many other Serbs, like Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki.

The finalists were Andreas Seppi, the Italian who was second seed, and unseeded Benoit Paire.  Seppi won this pretty easily 6-3, 6-2.  Paire is relatively young at age 22.

The most competitive of the tournaments was Estoril.  Juan Martin was the defending champ and had a surprisingly easy time over Richard Gasquet, 64 62.  The question is, can del Potro make a strong move into the top ten.  He’s steady, got good power, but lacks the intimidation he used to have that made him a threat to win Slams.

In Munich, local favorite Phillipp Kolschreiber won a close match over Marin Cilic, 76, 63.  Cilic was seen as a player that could break into the top 5, but hasn’t played well in quite some time.

Next week, three of the four top players in the world are entered including Nadal, fresh off his Monte Carlo and Barcelona wins, Novak Djokovic, who has not played since Monte Carlo, and Roger Federer, who also has not played since Miami, skipping Monte Carlo which is an optional Masters 1000.