Hardcourt tournaments are so prevalent that there are three distinct hardcourt “seasons”.  The first starts at the beginning of the year and lasts until just before the start of the clay season.  It culminates in Indian Wells and Miami.

The second starts two weeks after Wimbledon and is the US Open series.  The third pretty much picks up after that, with a combination of hardcourt and indoor events.

This week, the big guns are in Dubai.  This field would normally be much stronger.  However, Roger Federer dropped out due to lung infection.  Nadal hasn’t come back since he retired against Andy Murray at the Australian Open.  Juan Martin del Potro has also been out.

Even so, Andy Murray, defending champ, Novak Djokovic, and Nikolay Davydenko are still playing.

In the early rounds, almost all seeds advanced.  This includes a straight set win by Djokovic over Garcia Lopez, a straight set win by Murray over Kunitsyn, and wins by Davydenko, Tsonga, Cilic, and Youzhny.  The only top seed to lose was Gilles Simon who lost in straight sets to Baghdatis.  Simon hasn’t played well since 2008 when he reached the top 10.  Even so, his rankings remain relatively high.

Despite this hardcourt season, there has been clay tournaments.  Two weeks ago, there was a clay even in Brazil.  Last week, many of the same players went to Buenos Aires.  This week, they are in Acapulco, Mexico.

Surprisingly, Sam Querrey and John Isner both chose to play Acapulco on clay.  One reason may be that Acapulco is an ATP 500 event while Delray Beach is an ATP 250 event.  Needless to say, clay isn’t a good surface for Americans.  Even a player like Wayne Odesnik, who can be said to like clay, isn’t in the top caliber of cla court players.  Querrey, for his part, did a respectable job losing in a third set tiebreak to Fernando Gonzalez.  Isner lost in two close sets to Greul.

In Delray Beach, top seeded Tommy Haas lost in straight sets to Teimuraz Gabashvili.  This was also Kei Nishikori’s return to the tour after a year off with injury.  He lost in 3 sets to German, Benjamin Becker.  All the seeds that played won, including Karlovic, Chady, Korolev, Mayer and James Blake beating Taylor Dent.  Ernests Gulbis beat Ryan Harrison in straight sets.

After this, there is almost a two week break before Indian Wells, a ten day event, followed by Miami, which is another ten day event.  Indian Wells should see the return of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and possibly, Juan Martin del Potro.