There’s barely a grass court season, so the transition from clay to grass can be a rough one.  Were the grass court season comparable to, say, half the clay court season, say, 4 weeks of tuneup events prior to Wimbledon and maybe 1-2 Masters 1000 events on grass, perhaps we’d see a different set of rankings.  Roger Federer might have a stronger hold at the top.  With so many clay court players, the rankings are tilted heavily to clay courters.  With the increasing power of clay court players and their ability to construct points, many clay courters find the transition to hard courts more palatable than ever.

But grass, that elusive grass.

Today, the quarterfinals were played at both Queen’s Club (in London) and Halle (in Germany).  Of the four semifinalists from both, only 4 are seeded (two from each tournament) and only 1 person is seeded 3 or above (Roger Federer).

In Halle, the top 6 seeds are out.  Rafael Nadal lost in the quarters to 8th seed, Feliciano Lopez, who hasn’t beaten Rafa since 2003, in their first meeting ever.  Novak Djokovic, the 2nd seed, lost to unseeded Xavier Malisse in the 3rd round. Andy Murray, the 3rd seed, lost to Mardy Fish for the second time this year (he lost to him in Miami).  Andy Roddick, the 4th seed, lost to Dudi Sela, the 14th seed.  Cilic, the 5th seed, lost to qualifier Mahut in the 2nd round.  Monfils, the 6th seed, lost to Scheuttler in the 2nd round.

That leaves Lopez playing Fish and Schuettler playing Querrey in the semifinals.  Querrey has bounced back from a bout of burnout.  It’s a surprise that there are two Americans in the semifinals, neither one named Roddick.  John Isner apparently is injured which is why he’s not playing this week, and may be out next week.

Halle is a smaller event and has only 8 seeds.  Baghdatis, the 7th seed, lost in the first round to Petzchner.  Melzer, the 6th seed, lost to Zverev in the 2nd round.  Radek Stepanek, the 5th seed, withdrew from the tournament due to an infection.  Ferrero, the 4th seed, lost in the first round to Meffert.  Youzhny, the 3rd seed, lost in the first round to Kiefer.  Finally, Davydenko, the 2nd seed, lost to Becker.

Federer plays Petzchner in one semifinal while Lleyton Hewitt, the 8th seed, plays Benjamin Becker in the other semifinal.

In watching the Nadal match, one thing was clear.  It’s harder for Nadal to return on grass.  Sure, Lopez has a big serve, but Nadal would be able to put many more serves back in play if it were clay.  Also, the odd shots that Lopez hit were sometimes pretty effective.  Lopez hit an especially deep slice to Nadal on match point and won because of it.  In any case, it’s questionable whether Nadal was 100%.  He had injured himself the day before, got in a full match today, and can now rest and train for Wimbledon.  This may be an adjustment in Nadal’s thinking to not push himself unnecessarily.  I mean, I suppose if Nadal won, he’d be fine with that, but that an early loss is not a huge problem for him.