Saturday was marked with retirements and walkovers. Qualifier Stefan Koubek retired against Fernando Verdasco. Twentieth-seed Mikhail Youzhny withdrew with a wrist injury that developed during his epic match with Richard Gasquet in the first round. The Russian's withdrawal gave Pole Lukasz Kubot a walkover.

In the States, everyone’s favorite tennis sportscasters hyped the Hewitt-Baghdatis match as the match of the century. With their delusional pronouncements last night, the viewer would have had the impression that Marcos Baghdatis had actually won a grand slam. The reality is Baghdatis has won four career titles, with no grand slams or masters titles among them. After all the hype, the match ended with a whimper with Lleyton Hewitt trouncing Baghdatis and the Cypriots’ subsequent withdrawal in the second set from the match. Assholes.

The rest of the seeded players progressed pretty easily in straight sets with Djokovic and Davydenko moving quickly and quietly through the draw. The match of the day was 10-seed Jo-Wilfred Tsonga versus 18-seed Tommy Haas.

The two players met once before in Halle last year with the German veteran winning that meeting on grass. Tsonga had an easy time progressing through the first rounds this week. Haas, on the other hand, had a much difficult road by drawing Janko Tipsarevic in the second round and getting caught in a five-set match with the Serb.

Tsonga and Haas started evenly with both players staying on serve. In the ninth game of the first set, Tsonga broke Haas and was able to win the opening set. The German returned the favor in the second set. In the third set, errors crept into the 18-seed’s game. Tsonga took advantage by breaking Haas twice and taking control of the match.

In the fourth and final set, the two players traded breaks and were even at 5-5. Haas had a sloppy game eleven, and 10-seed broke the veteran for the final time. The Frenchman held at love for the set and the match. After 2 hours and 28 minutes, Tsonga sealed the deal 6-4 3-6 6-1 7-5.

Tsonga will now meet 26-seed Nicolas Almagro in the round of 16. The two players have never met in ATP competition.

Saturday’s Results
Singles Third Round
1 Roger Federer (SUI) def. 31 Albert Montanes (ESP) 6-3 6-4 6-4
3 Novak Djokovic (SRB) def. Denis Istomin (UZB) 6-1 6-1 6-2
6 Nikolay Davydenko (RUS) def. 30 Juan Monaco (ARG) 6-0 6-3 6-4
9 Fernando Verdasco (ESP) def Q Stefan Koubek (AUT) 6-1 ret. (illness)
10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA) def. 18 Tommy Haas (GER) 6-4 3-6 6-1 7-5
Lukasz Kubot (POL) def. 20 Mikhail Youzhny (RUS) walkover (right wrist)
22 Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) def. Marcos Baghdatis (CYP) 6-0 4-2 ret. (right shoulder)
26 Nicolas Almagro (ESP) def. Alejandro Falla (COL) 6-4 6-3 6-4

Doubles Second Round
3 L. Dlouhy (CZE)/L Paes (IND) def. L. Arnold Ker (ARG)/ H. Tecau (ROU) 7-5 6-3
M. Kohlmann (GER)/J. Nieminen (FIN) def. C. Fleming (GBR)/K. Skupski (GBR) 3-6 6-4 6-3
A. Clement (FRA)/J. Erlich (ISR) def. F. Lopez (ESP)/R. Schuettler (GER) 6-3 7-5
F. Gonzalez (CHI)/I. Ljubicic (CRO) def. C. Ball (AUS)/S. Huss (AUS) 5-7 7-6(3) 7-5
I. Karlovic (CRO)/D. Vemic (SRB) def. WC K. Hensel (AUS)/ G. Jones (AUS) 3-6 7-5 7-5
J. Isner (USA)/ S. Querrey (USA) def. J. Benneteau (FRA) /S. Darcis (BEL) 6-4 6-0
L. Mayer (ARG)/H. Zeballos (ARG) def. I. Andreev (RUS)/E. Korolev (KAZ) 6-3 6-2

Sunday’s Matches
Singles Round of 16
2 Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. Ivo Karlovic (CRO)
4 Juan Martin del Potro (ARG) vs. 14 Marin Cilic (CRO)
5 Andy Murray (GBR) vs. John Isner (USA)
7 Andy Roddick (USA) vs. 11 Fernando Gonzalez (CHI)

Doubles Third Round
1 B. Bryan (USA)/M. Bryan (USA) vs. 17 J. Melzer (AUT)/P. Petzschner (GER)
2 D. Nestor (CAN)/N. Zimonjic (SRB) vs. P. Marx (GER)/I. Zelenay (SVK)
J. Brunstrom (SWE)/J.J. Rojer (AHO) vs. Arnaud Clement (FRA)/J. Erlich (ISR)

Sunday’s Order of Play

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Well, well, well. Rafael Nadal made the top 10 list of America’s most-liked sports figures. He came in fourth behind Shawn Johnson, Larry Johnson, and Kurt Warner with 68% percent of people who liked him. Tiger Woods is two spots behind Nadal at number six with 65%. And no, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick did not make the list.

Despite America’s tennis community’s groupthink, Nadal is not only the most popular player worldwide, but he is also the most likeable player in America, which is a big deal. Our tennis writers, announcers, and pundits generally prefer Federer and think that because they do, so do you.

So when you are watching that match and someone like Brad Gilbert is acting like Federer is the biggest star on tour, now you know he is full of it. It is just HE really likes him best because America actually prefers Nadal.

(Image: Nike Sportswear)

Spain and the Czech Republic both wrapped up their Davis Cup ties today. Both team won their doubles rubbers today and advanced to the finals in December.

The Czech two-man wrecking crew of Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek made easy work of Marin Cilic and Lovro Zovko 6-1 6-3 6-4 today after 2 hours and 16 minutes. It was an easy day for the pair after the two players played almost ten hours in their singles rubbers yesterday.

Their December rivals, Spain surprisingly wrapped up their tie today. Tommy Robredo and Feliciano Lopez had to overcome the Israeli doubles team of Andy Ram and Jonathan Ehrlich.

The Spaniards were able to hold serve in the first set and sneak off with it in the tiebreak. The Israelis then rallied to take the second set. It was at this time that professional asshat, Justin Gimmelstob decided he would pile on the Spanish team by over-emphasizing the Spaniards' volleying weaknesses.

Every player possesses weakness in his game, and that is frankly the beauty of tennis. There are also reasons why players end up doubles specialists in the first place. The Israelis' weaknesses just so happened to be the Spaniards’ strengths, which were their serves and groundstrokes.

It was in the third set that the Spanish team exposed the Israelis shortcomings. The Spaniards upped their serves and drew their opponents into groundstroke shootouts. It was at this point that Robredo and his forehand started playing target practice, and Lopez did a great job of picking off balls at the net.

After the Spaniards won four-straight games, the asshat extraordinaire became quiet for the rest of the match. The Israelis rallied back into the third set, despite Ehrlich having to call for the trainer to treat his elbow. At 4-5, the Spaniards were able to close out the third set. In the fourth set, the wheels came off the Israeli team, and the Spaniards were able to close out the set, the match and the tie 7-6(6) 6-7(7) 6-4 6-2 after 3 hours and 47 minutes of play.

The Spaniards are heavily favored to successfully defend their title, but they take the Czech team for granted at their own peril. The Czech team has let Berdych and Stepanek carry the entire load to the final. They had no problems taking out talented and deep teams -- just ask the French. If Rafael Nadal is able to play, Spain has a great chance to repeat. But if he is not around, the Czech double-trouble team could do a lot of damage.

Video highlights of the Spanish match en espanol below:



(Images: Darko Bandic/AP, Manu Fernandez/AP)

Might he coach? "No, no. Playing is one thing and teaching is completely different. It looks simple but it's really not. It's a really tough job." TV commentating? "I'm different to other people who want to lay back and do nothing for the rest of their lives and talk nonsense on ESPN, talking about my match against Sampras. I will not do that."

This quote from Marat Safin encapsulates the main problem with tennis broadcasts in the United States. John McEnroe, Patrick McEnroe, Brad Gilbert, Mary Jo Fernandez, Mary Carillo et al. basically have a lock on most of the tennis broadcasts. If you want to watch a match on television in the States with the sound on, you are going to be treated to these fools.

They could careless about what is going on the court and the current crop of players and love to talk about themselves and their useless opinions. I have heard children give better “analysis” of matches than these people. Normally, I turn off the sound and watch the matches with music on. The last two days, I attempted watch matches with the sound on to try and see if I could learn something interesting but was only treated to a headache from the verbal diarrhea spewed by these people.

I literally watched two minutes of the Davydenko-Soderling match this afternoon before John McEnroe worked on my nerves with his nonsense. We should be telling him, “You can’t be serious with your bullshit analysis!” Yesterday, he took a narrow reading of the trainer rule to act like Rafael Nadal was cheating and attempted to feign false outrage. In the same Nadal-Almagro match, Mary Carillo said that the reason Nadal pulled out of Wimbledon was to focus on the US Open. Really?

We then have Brad Gilbert who basically trashes all of the non-Anglo players. The man is an overall tennis creep that acts as if he were commentating a WWE match. The audience has hear about how he coached Andre Agassi and Andy Murray every two seconds, and we do not hear boo about when he was a player stinking up the court.

And don’t get me start about Martina Navratilova, who can only talk about what she would do if she were playing and trash the current players. She reserves special ire for the Williams sisters. Say what you want but those girls have 18 grand slam titles between the two of them. They have to be doing something right.

I am going to miss Safin for his play and personality. Who else can sum up what everyone else is thinking in one sentence in his third language? The sad part is that I think Safin would actually be a good commentator, but these trolls have scared him off from doing that.

Marat Safin advanced to the second round. He beat wildcard Alexandre Sidorenko of France 6-4 6-4 6-4. The Russian had some blips in the match but managed to wrap it up in straight sets. He will play Frenchman Josselin Ouanna in the next round. The two players have never played in ATP competition.

If you were watching the match on American TV, you would have heard John McEnroe trashing Safin throughout the match and acting like Safin was going to lose when it could not have been more further from the truth. The man is extra ridiculous as a sportscaster, so it is going to be a long two weeks of sportscasting nonsense.

(Image: FFT)

Rafael Nadal beat Andy Murray in the second semifinal of the day. He held off the Scotsmen 6-2 7-6(4). Nadal struck first in the second game of the match, but Murray broke back. The Spaniard then struck again. This time he held for 4-1. He cruised to take the first set easily 6-2.

In the second set, Nadal struck first in game four and jumped out to a 5-2 lead before you knew it. Serving for the match, Nadal was broken by Murray to stay in the match. Murray then won another two games to level the set at 5-5. Murray continued to hold on and sent the set to a tiebreak where the Spaniard held off the Scotsman to take the match.

Nadal will now play Novak Djokovic in the final. Nadal leads their matchup 11-4. Djokovic has never beaten Nadal on clay. There is always a first time for everything, but I doubt it will be tomorrow.

Djokovic win and Murray’s loss today allows Murray to chip away another 50 points against the Serb's number-three ranking. If the Serb wins tomorrow, he will buy him some more time to hold onto his position.

Finally, I would like to discuss my current pet peeve in men’s tennis that really has nothing to do with the players. I usually turn the sound off because most of the sportscasters are terrible. American sportscasters are the worst. Actually, Chris Evert is really good, but I guess she has better things to do.

Usually, the Brits and Aussies are mildly tolerable except when it comes to Andy Murray, who is probably the most oversold player that I have ever seen on the men’s side. They had to calm the ridiculousness down when they were overhyping Murray and making ridiculous proclamations at the Australian Open. He lost in the quarterfinals to Fernando Verdasco and then they finally toned it down. Now Murray has won some titles and has really improved on clay, so their ridiculousness went into overdrive today.

We were treated to British sportscasters, Jason Goodall and some other guy, who were completely delusional about reality and making excuses for the impending Murray loss, from his blister to the ball falling out of his pocket (clue, he should take the ball out his pocket, which he did). They kept going on about Murray’s “successes” against Nadal. For the record, Nadal is 6-2 against Murray before the match. A twenty-five percent winning percentage is not success. Murray is a good player and is improving, but Nadal is the best player right now so let him have his time in the sun.

They finally shut up and came back to reality after Nadal went up 4-1 in the first set. While Murray was making his second-set run, they then tried to act like it was the 2008 Wimbledon final. He is the second best player on tour this year, and he SHOULD not be blown off the court. He also SHOULD be trying to take a set from Nadal. There were other gems, but you probably get the point.

I actually like Andy Murray as a player, but this tomFOOLery just turns me off. He would probably have more fans if the Anglo sportscasters would tone it down. Moral to the story, turn off the sound during Andy Murray matches.

(Image: AP/Claude Paris)