After the Asian swing of the tour which concluded in Shanghai, the men’s tour made a shift to Europe where two tournaments, both ATP 250, were being held.  One was held in Moscow, the other in Stockholm.

Nikolay Davydenko, who beat Nadal to win Shanghai, was the top seed in Moscow, but given his victory in Shanghai, one could understand if Davydenko wasn’t ready to give it his all.  He promptly lost in the first round to Marat Safin, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.

For smaller tournament such as these, it’s common to get players from that country to play.  Thus, Moscow produced a lot of Russian players and Stockholm got Robin Soderling as there are few top-ranked Swedes outside of Soderling.

Stockholm had some news outside of the tournament.  Ernests Gulbis and one other player were accused of soliciting services from prostitutes.  Sweden, it seems, does not make it illegal for prostitutes to do business, but does make it illegal to accost the services of a prostitute thus placing the plan on those seeking some pre-tournament warm-up.

The top seeds were, not unexpectedly, missing.  This lead to finals that few perhaps cared about.  In Stockholm, Marco Baghdatis won his 3rd career tournament, his first in two years, by beating friend Olivier Rochus of Belgium: 6-1, 7-5.  Soderling retired in the semifinals against Baghdatis.

Meanwhile, Mikhail Youzhny beat Serb Janko Tipsarevic: 6-7 (5-7), 6-0, 6-4.  Youzhny has been playing well recently, so it must be nice for him to win a tournament in his home country.

Next week, three ATP 250 events are played the same week: Lyon, Vienna, and St. Petersburg.  Murray is the defending champ at St. Petersburg.

The following week, two ATP 500 events are played at the same time: Valencia and Basel.  Federer is expected to mark his return to the tour in Basel.

The following week is the Paris Indoors, then a week off, then the Barclay ATP Finals where the top 8 point getters play in the year’s last tournament.