Fans and most top players get a breather from the clay dust this week. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any tournaments, of course; between the men and women, there are at least five underway as we speak. But the biggest names on both tours are resting up for the back-to-back Masters/Premier run through Madrid and Rome, which begins next Monday and deposits us on the doorstep of Roland Garros.

For those of you who don’t believe in breathers from tennis, here’s a look at what’s happening at two men's events, each of which is headlined by a player to watch this spring.

*****

BMW Open
Munich, Germany
Clay
$526,960; 250 rankings points
Draw is here

Does Jo-Wilfried Tsonga qualify as a “big” name? Yes, he does, so I should amend my statement above to reflect the fact that the No. 5 player in the world is indeed in action this week. He’s the top seed in Munich. It’s not a bad move for the Frenchman to pick up some matches; the last time we saw him he was blowing a 4-2 lead in the second set to his lower-ranked countryman Gilles Simon in Monte Carlo. Tsonga will open with the winner between Michael Berrer and Tommy Haas. His half also includes, in descending order of seed, Cilic, Youzhny, and Baghdatis.

At first glance it came as a surprise to me that Feliciano Lopez would merit a second-seeding here, but the Other Spanish Lefty (Feli, now ranked No. 16, has recently switched places with No. 19 Fernando Verdasco, who is now the Other Other Spanish Lefty) has been playing some good ball. In Houston and Barcelona, Lopez probably should have beaten both Isner and Ferrer, respectively. But he didn’t; hence his continued Otherness.

Lopez begins with the winner of Cedrik-Marcel Stebe and Sergiy Stakhovsky. In his half are Bernard Tomic, winner over Olivier Rochus earlier today; Philipp Kohlschreiber; and Nikolay Davydenko, the defending champ. Can the aging but improving Lopez win a tournament like this? It would seem to be the logical next step, but it’s still a long shot. If Tsonga has any designs on the top four in the weeks ahead, this is the place to start showing what he can do.

Player to monitor: Tomic

Obligatory all-talent first-round match: Gulbis vs. Malisse

Motivated veteran: Davydenko. He hugged his complimentary BMW Cabriolet when he won last year; I'm sure he, or his wife, would like another.

Best-named first-rounder: Potito Starace vs. David “Not Geffen” Goffin

*****

Estoril Open
Estoril, Portugal
Clay
$526,960; 250 ranking points
Draw is here

OK, I’ll have to amend my earlier statement one more time, because Estoril’s top seed, Juan Martin del Potro, certainly qualifies as “big,” both in stature in the hopes and expectations that continually surround him. For two years we’ve waited for the Argentine to make his move back to the late stages of Grand Slams. We’re still waiting; we may always be waiting. He may not win everything, but del Potro is good for suspense.

This year the world No. 12 comes to Estoril as the defending champ, and he joins the clay swing after a month’s rest. Del Potro had a busy and generally successful run to start the season, and he finished it on a high note with two Davis Cup wins over Croatia. He’ll open with the winner of Pedro Sousa and Rui Machado. Also in del Potro’s half are Stan Wawrinka, Robin Haase, and Albert Montanes.

The second seed in Estoril is Richard Gasquet, a finalist here in 2007. He’ll start with Paola Lorenzi. In his half is fifth seed Dennis Istomin, as well as the Other Other Other Spanish Lefty, Albert Ramos. This would seem to be an opportunity for Gasquet; we’ll see what he makes of it.

Otherwise, Estoril may be most notable this time for its deep trove of superb names. In addition to the aforementioned Pedro Sousa, we also have Inigo Cervantes and Attila Balazs in attendance. My week has been made.

by Pete Bodo

Milos Raonic: It's not just that Raonic beat Andy Murray in the quarterfinals at Barcelona last week. It's the persistence with which this big specimen from Canada keeps building on his resume—and reputation. 

Raonic got off to a great start this year, winning titles in Chennai and San Jose, then making the final in Memphis. That yielded a ranking of No. 27, after which Raonic hit a few speed bumps—one named Roger Federer (third round, Indian Wells) and an unexpected injury (sprained ankle, Miami). In his first event since Miami, Raonic lost in Monte Carlo to Albert Montanes. It looked as if Raonic, who's just 21, might be heading for the dreaded sophomore slump after his breakout year.

But Raonic rained down 14 aces and scored repeatedly with his forehand in that upset of second-seeded Murray, and—perhaps more important—the win suggested that the Canuck once again has hardly missed a beat in his rise to the elite level (he's at a career-high No. 23 now). After shocking Murray to make the semis, Raonic said, "For me, it was a big win regardless of the (clay) surface."

And that's one of the most convincing things about this 6'5" power server. He plays pretty much the same, aggressive way on every surface, and at his best he can make the differences between them trivial.

Agnieszka Radwanska: Alright, everybody loves Aggie, she of that mesmerizing, almost soporific game that's based so solidly on excellent anticipation, good movement, and a cunning use of the full court. But at some point she's going to have to find a way to compete with world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka.

Radwanska, now No. 4, lost to Azarenka in the semis of Stuttgart, 6-1, 6-3. It was her fifth loss of the year to her Belarussan rival; in fact, if you disregard a walkover with which Radwanska bowed out of Kuala Lumpur, she's undefeated in 2012 against everyone but Azarenka. Some pundits make much of the rumor that these two women have fallen out and dislike each other. So what? You can still play the game to win. Radwanska was 3-5 against Azarenka before this year, so clearly she has the ability to do better. 

Radwanska received treatment on her back in the second set of her latest loss to Azarenka, but played her best tennis of the day after the visit with the physio. Nevertheless, she headed back to her native Poland after losing with her tail firmly tucked between her legs. "Clay is not my favorite surface," she said, "But playing against the same player all the time isn't really fun."

It's time for Aggie to suck it up and figure out a way to get over what is starting to look suspiciously like a psychological block.

Fabio Fognini: It's tough to be a male Italian tennis pro. Utterly overshadowed by surprise 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone, with the country's Davis Cup team mired in the second division of the World Group while the Fed Cup squad built a dynasty in recent years, the Italian men have just two representatives inside the Top 50, and those just barely.

Those two—Fognini and Andreas Seppi—met in the third round at Bucharest, where Seppi was the No. 6 seed and Fognini was a floater. With the bragging rights to Bologna and Brindisi at stake—and (I imagine), playing before excitable spectators wearing sunglasses by Bulgari, feasting on prosciutto and melon, and quaffing an excellent Chianti—Fognini battled through to take the match, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-4. 

Fognini continued to the final, where he lost to Gilles Simon, 6-4, 6-3. 

Stay tuned: Fognini is now No. 48, but just two notches ahead of Seppi.

Serena Williams: In an act of just the kind of solidarity you might expect from a pair of single 30-year-old sisters who live together, Serena has declared that she's trying to embrace the raw diet adopted by her sister, Venus. Serena doesn't want to tempt her sister's discipline by sitting down to a great big cheeseburger and fries. Venus is trying the raw diet because it might help her cope with Sjogren's syndrome, the autoimmune disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain. 

Serena recently told a reporter that while Venus has struggled to get accustomed to the diet, she's experienced no such difficulties herself, saying:  "I've always been a better eater than her, even though I'm a lot thicker. . ."

Does this mean that, come Grand Slam event time, we'll see a leaner, swifter, more explosive Serena on the red clay or green grass? Or would a raw diet (if you remember, it was wholeheartedly endorsed and promoted by Martina Navratilova late in her career) diminish her much-celebrated predatory instincts?

Rainier Hoffman: Now 33 and retired, Patty Schnyder made it as high as No. 7 in the WTA rankings (in late 2005); had numerous wins over the likes of Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf, Justine Henin, and many other top players; and hauled off $8.4 million USD in prize money. Although she hit her career-high ranking sometime after her marriage to Hoffman in 2003, his controversial "coaching" techniques and seemingly Svengali-like influence on Schnyder were thought to have a deleterious effect on his wife, whose results became prone to wild fluctuations. There was never any shortage of drama where Schnyder and Hoffman were concerned.

The drama has become sordid. The Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported a few days ago that Hoffman and Schnyder allegedly owe nearly $500,000 USD to various creditors (including Swiss tax authorities). Apparently, Hoffman and Schnyder have fled Switzerland and moved to Germany. Creditors recently forced an auction of Schnyder's personal belongings, including tennis racquets, some trophies, and—this one is the heartbreaker—her junior tennis diaries.

Steve Johnson: The senior at the University of Southern California hasn't lost a collegiate tennis match since January of 2011. He won his 59th consecutive collegiate match last week at the big gathering in Ojai, Ca.

Johnson is ATP-ready. The first word that pops into my mind to describe his game is "intriguing," based on a combination of homemade-looking strokes, great court sense, and a wonderful competitive temperament. But Johnson stayed at USC for his senior year to help the Trojans to their fourth straight NCAA title. USC coach Peter Smith has nothing but praise for Johnson; he told the LA Times, "He is, for sure, a top-100 player. After that, it's up to him."

Wouldn't it be interesting if the U.S. ended up with another John Isner-like character—a kid who joined the pro tour relatively late after college—and still succeeded?

Ana Ivanovic: Found: A big-time tennis star who does not—repeat does not—want to be an actress or have a second (or parallel) career in show business, even though her Serbian countryman and friend, Novak Djokovic, has a cameo in the upcoming film, "The Expendables 2", and Serena Williams is still keen to make a mark in Hollywood.

Ivanovic, a former No. 1 and French Open champ, isn't even tempted by the idea of a career in film. As she told ESPN.com: "I live a public enough life as it is, and I really want to do something different. I know that I would love to have a nice husband and kids, maybe two or three."

Maria Sharapova: If there seemed to be a ho-hum quality to Rafael Nadal's win in Barcelona on Sunday, you should have hunted up the Sharapova-Azarenka final in Stuttgart. I compare the accomplishments of Nadal and Sharapova in this post over at ESPN.

It was a great job by Sharapova, winning a clay event in which the top eight women in the world—including French Open champion Li Na—were entered. Sharapova lost the last two finals she played against Azarenka in straight sets, but she blasted her rival in this one, hitting 31 winners on clay as she won, 6-1, 6-4. That's the thing with Sharapova: You can't ever count her out.

Gilles Simon: Simon may be in that sub-elite class of players, but he had the honor of being top-seeded in Bucharest last week. For players unaccustomed to that degree of pressure, that's often the kiss of death. But Simon came through with an utterly commanding, professional series of wins, losing just one set on his way to the title (d. Fognini in final, 6-4, 6-3). The win bumped Simon up to No. 11 in the rankings.

We had seen a lot of celebrations from Maria Sharapova over the last 12 months, a lot of fists clenched, hands thrust high in the air, and kisses blown to the audience. But we hadn’t seen her look the way she looked after beating Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 6-4 in Stuttgart yesterday. This time Sharapova ended up doing something simpler yet more expressive: She smiled. It was a smile of relief and plain happiness, and, for a woman who projects an image of rigid and intimidating self-control, a surprisingly spontaneous moment.

Well, not that surprising when you think about it. This was a win that Maria had been waiting for, and a breakthrough on two fronts. After lopsided losses to Azarenka in the finals of the Aussie Open and Indian Wells, she had shown that wasn't going to play second-fiddle to Vika forever. Just as important, after suffering final-round defeats at last year’s Wimbledon and in her first three events of 2012, Sharapova had finished the job and ended the week on a winning note.

“I had lost the last few previous encounters with Victoria,” Sharapova said afterward, having regained her usual rigid verbal self-control, “so I was extremely motivated today.”

Even those words felt like an understatement. Sharapova was literally not stopping for anything on this day, including her opponent. In a reprise of the famous sideline “Bump” between Venus Williams and Irina Spirlea at the 1997 U.S. Open, Maria and Vika gave us the “Brush.” Walking to the sideline on a changeover, their eyes firmly planted on the court in front of them, the two top seeds barely avoided flattening each other.

In the end, it was Azarenka who seemed bothered by her opponent, despite those recent wins over her. More significantly, Vika was bothered by a wrist injury that required a mid-match tape job. Whatever the reason, she hit half as many winners as Sharapova and left her serve hanging, ready to be smacked. Sharapova smacked it repeatedly to the corners with her backhand, just as she had in her semifinal win over Petra Kvitova. The one question mark in Azarenka’s game over the last year had been her serve, and it looked especially vulnerable on Sunday. Sore wrist or not, she’ll have to do more with it if and when she runs into Kvitova or Serena Williams, neither of whom she’s played this season.

But this final was more about Maria than it was Vika. As it was winding up, Tennis Channel commentator Lindsay Davenport declared it the best match she’d seen Sharapova play since she had shoulder surgery all the way back in 2008. It’s hard to argue with that assessment. This looked like the old Maria, and it looked like the old Maria’s serve. She hit it with conviction and confidence to the corners; even her other, less-famous shoulder appeared to be rising higher than normal on her toss, allowing her to extend farther upward. Sharapova had five aces in the first set. In the semis, she used her serve to save 10 break points against Kvitova, and she saved an important one at 0-1 in the second set yesterday, when the momentum appeared ready to turn against her. Serving at 5-4 in the second, she had no trouble closing it out. She laced two backhands past Azarenka, hit an inspired lunging forehand volley, and finished with a service winner.

Sharapova has worked hard to shed her "cow on ice" image on clay, and this match showed the dividends. While she’s not going to win a Rafael Nadal impersonation contest, she slid well, particularly to her backhand side. She was the one pushing Azarenka back and controlling the middle of the court, rather than the other way around. Sharapova credited her patience from the baseline. “I knew I had to change a few things,” she said. “Before I was maybe a little bit impatient and went for it a bit too much sometimes, but this time I was really patient. I was aggressive but consistent when I had to be against her.”

The match was an echo of the Nadal-Novak Djokovic final in Monte Carlo. While there were extenuating circumstances in both, what’s important going forward is that both Rafa and Maria ended painful losing streaks—they have that winning feeling against their nemeses again.

Sharapova, who toughed out close wins over the highly ranked Kvitova and Sam Stosur to reach the final, certainly seemed to savor that feeling. As she walked to the other side of the court to give a hug to her coach, Thomas Hogstedt, and her hitting partner, Cecil Mamiit, I thought about her old entourage and how she had moved on over the years. In the past it had been her father, Yuri, and coach, Michael Joyce, who had formed an us-against-the-world support group. This crew is friendlier, but Maria hasn’t changed all that much.

The woman who could have been all about image and glamour and selling and branding, who could have taken the money and run, is still hungry to win and willing to take the hard road to do it. Sharapova could have stayed home until the mandatory event in Madrid, but she came over early for en extra clay tune-up. It might end up being the most important tournament of the season for her. And she closed it with her prettiest image: A smile.

*****

“It’s almost unimaginable to win here seven times,” Rafael Nadal said yesterday. The key word there is "almost," because a few minutes earlier Nadal had done the unimaginable and won his seventh title in Barcelona. Nadal finds himself saying this kind of thing a lot at this time of year. For a good reason: With his win, he became the only man to have won two different tournaments—Barcelona and Monte Carlo—at least seven times. By the time the 2012 clay season is over, he might add a third event, Roland Garros, to that list. It really is unimaginable; who, as a kid, would dream of doing that. With Nadal on clay, truth is stranger than the imagination.

For the fourth time at this tournament, Rafa beat his countryman David Ferrer in the final. It wasn’t easy this time—as Nadal said, and as the 7-6 (1), 7-5 scoreline indicated, “it was a very equal match.” Ferrer may even have been the better player for most of it. He pressed Nadal with his backhand, a shot that had been clicking for him all week. And Rafa was off with his bread-and-butter forehand for much of the first set. I had written earlier in the week that Ferrer didn’t have an extra gear to shift into when he played the top guys, but he seemed ready to prove me wrong. He had five set points in the first set, and he served for the second at 5-4. Yet Ferrer still lost them both.

“I had chances in both sets,” Ferrer said, “but he played better in the important moments. It came down to small details. . . . I played a bit too conservatively on the set points in the first set.”

Yes, it’s true that Ferrer lost it, and that he did get a little tentative when he had those set points. On one of them, he pushed his backhand, his go-to shot, lamely into the net after a long rally. But it’s also true that Nadal won those points. Last week I talked about how Rafa's forehand separates him from other players, because it’s a shot that he can swing out on, with little fear that it will misfire. On important points, he hits bigger rather than safer—with his spin, the more racquet-head speed he gets, the safer his shot becomes. On the first set point, he uncorked a forehand winner down the line. On the second, he won it with a forcing inside-out forehand. On the fourth, he shanked one forehand that luckily landed in, then took over the rally with a series of forehands. Only on the fifth and final set point was his forehand not a factor—he hit an ace instead.

We tend to take Nadal’s wins on clay for granted, as if it’s automatic for him. And we can probably forgive ourselves for doing this when a guy makes it feel so automatic. On closer inspection, though, his win over Ferrer is a reminder that it isn’t, even for him. Rafa’s forehand can still go off, his serve is up and down from one week to the next, and he can get pushed around and even made uncomfortable on clay. “He didn’t let me play my best level in the first set,” Nadal said of Ferrer, who took a page from the Djokovic playbook by pushing Nadal into his backhand corner and taking his own backhand on the rise for crosscourt winners. Yet Nadal won again.

Ferrer did the normal thing; he hit the ball freely and well until the crucial moments. Then he didn’t hit it as freely or as well. Nadal went in the opposite direction. He hit his forehand poorly until the crucial moments. Then he made it work. That’s abnormal, but so is winning a tournament for the seventh time.

Nadal has now won 21 straight matches on clay and is 34 for 38 in finals on the surface. He has 14 clay titles in the month of April alone. And like his fellow traveler in persistence, Maria Sharapova, he’s as hungry for trophies to bite as ever—maybe the best thing about his Barcelona record is that he doesn’t even have to play this tournament. It would all be hard to imagine in the mind, if Nadal wasn’t doing it before our eyes.

by Pete Bodo

Nothing testifies to the degree that most tennis matches boil down to a handful of key points, and the mental strength or weakness each player brings to those points, than the statistics.

In tennis, keeping statistics often seems akin to splitting hairs.

Consider this: As of this writing, the batting average for the top five hitters in the National League of Major League Baseball ranges between a league-leading .425 (Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers) and .344 (Michael Bourn, Atlanta Braves). Granted, it's early in the year; by September, anyone hitting at .344 is already thinking contract re-negotiation.

Still, according to the ATP Ricoh Matchfacts, the top nine servers in tennis so far this year have a first-serve conversion percentage of between 69 and 72 percent—a swing of a mere three percentage points. Flavio Cipolla, Alex Bogomolov Jr., and Victor Hanescu are presently tied for the lead in that department. ATP No. 1 Novak Djokovic is serving at a 62 percent rate in 2012, placing him in a seven-way tie for bragging rights as the 33rd-best server on the tour.

As you go down the stats tables in tennis, entire rafts of players with identical numbers are the norm, not the exception. The stats show that tennis is a game of the tiniest margins, which suggests that the men who dominate have some quality other than a conspicous facility to doing some or most things far better.

Still, I was curious to see what we might glean from a comparison of those two great rivals, Djokovic and ATP No. 2 Rafael Nadal, if we compared them in the key statistical categories. And I wanted to look at their career numbers, not just year-to-date—at least on those categories where ranking is by percentage, and thus as representative as you can get for those players whose careers aren't complete.

You have to do a little data mining to get a clear picture in this enterprise, because of how bunched-up the players are, but this is what I came up with:

First-serve Conversion Percentage

Nadal: Fourth-best on the career list with 69 percent; tied with with two players, including countryman Fernando Verdasco, for No. 5 overall.

Djokovic: Ninth-best on the career list with 64 percent; tied with four other men, including Juan Carlos Ferrero. That puts him and those men at No. 30 on the overall list, given the number of players who share various higher percentages.

Read it and scratch your head: The all-time leader is, get this: Germany's Gilbert Schaller, who connected on 76 percent of his first serves.

First-Serve Points Won

Nadal and Djokovic: Tied as 11th-best with 72 percent—but both are no better than No. 88 when you count all the men who have a better percentage.

Read it and laugh out loud: The co-leader is ace-machine Goran Ivanisevic, who won a preposterous 82 percent of his first serves with that big, hooking lefty serve. (The other is Ivo Karlovic.)

Second-Serve Points Won

Nadal: No. 1, and tied with—guess who? (It's not Djokovic.) He's won 57 percent of his  second-serve points.

Djokovic: Owns the fourth-best percentage in this category at 54. But he's in pretty good company, tied for seventh overall with Thomas Muster and Andre Agassi.

Read it and get ready to argue: The man Nadal is tied with is Roger Federer.

Service Games Won

Nadal: Seventh-best with an 85 percent success rate, tied with four other men, including Ivan Ljubicic, for 12th overall.

Djokovic: Eighth-best with 84 percent, tied with nine men.

Read it and and ask, "Who' that?": Wayne Arthurs is No. 5 on this list, at 88 percent.

Break Points Saved

Nadal: Fourth-best, tied with six other players.

Djokovic: Fifth-best, tied with four others.

Read it and tip your hat to these two: This list reads like a who's who of great servers, starting with Karlovic, John Isner, and Andy Roddick. Nole and Rafa are in some heady company here.

First-Serve Return Points Won

Nadal: Second-best percentage with 34%, a record shared with 11 other players.

Djokovic: Third-best at 33 percent, tied with 10 other players.

Read it and say, "I see what you mean. . .": Just look at how little separates the two men—again.

Second-Serve Return Points Won

Nadal: Second-best 55 percent success rate. One among nine with that percentage.

Djokovic: Third-best 54 percent success rate. One of 14 players with that percentage.

Read it and shout, "No way!": Byron Black is one percentage point better than Djokovic.

Break Points Converted

Nadal and Djokovic: For the second time, a dead heat at 45 percent, along with six others.

Read and try not to act surprised: Nobody was better in this department than. . . Guillermo Coria (46 percent).

Return Games Won

Nadal: Comes in at No. 2, with a 33 percent career rate.

Djokovic: Fourth-best 31 percent career rate, tied with eight others.

Read it and go Hmmmm. . .: Given the slight margins we've been dealing with here, this one seems dramatically significant, not least because Coria (the not-so-surprising leader once again) stands alone, as does Nadal, after which eight men boast a 32 percent success rate, and nine (including Djokovic) are at 31 percent.

***

So what do we make of all this? First of all, Djokovic and Nadal are already well-entrenched among the best players ever to play this game, at least statistically, but. . . let's remember that while longevity is not an issue when it comes to percentages, it can influence those numbers as a player continues beyond his peak years. However, that effect seems to be modest (the 30-year-old Federer is among the all-time leaders in every department as well).

You have to be impressed by just how close these rivals are in all these tables. Rafa and Nole are separated by more than two places in only two of these departments. The widest gap between the men is first-serve conversion percentage, followed by second-serve points won.

Overall, Nadal still has a very small but distinct edge on Djokovic in almost every department. You could easily dismiss those fractional differences and argue that our concept of margin-of-error wipes them out—if you didn't know what a fine line so often separates the winner from the runner-up in tennis.

It had eluded her throughout her tennis career. Dozens of tournament victories and millions of dollars couldn’t bring her any closer to that elusive goal. On Sunday, Maria Sharapova accomplished it. She got herself a Porsche.

Sharapova defeated No. 1 Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 6-4 this weekend in Stuttgart, winning her first title of 2012 and receiving a car for tournament title-sponsor Porsche for her effort. The world No. 2 had joked on Saturday night that she had a lot of cars, but not one from the German automaker.

It was just the second loss of the year for Azarenka, who is still without a premier victory on clay. She was treated for a wrist injury after getting routed in the first set.

Sharapova won a clay title for the third consecutive season.

“I had lost the last few previous encounters with Victoria, so I was extremely motivated today,” she said after the match. “When I got the chance to go out and play her again I knew I had to change a few things. Before I was maybe a little bit impatient and went for a bit too much sometimes, but this time I was really patient. I was aggressive but consistent when I had to be against her.

After Maria Sharapova won her semifinal match, a journalist asked how many cars she has. Sharapova knew where the woman was going. “I have a few,” she said with a laugh and continued. “I do not have a Porsche yet.” She was referring, of course, to the Porsche awarded to the tournament’s winner. “Do you have room for it?” asked the journalist. Sharapova was ready again. “You can always make room in the garage for a car. I would love to.”

It turns out she will have to do just that, because world No. 2 Sharapova beat No. 1 Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 6-4 in an 84-minute final in which she played well from start to finish.

Sharapova won her first title of the year, beating the last three Grand Slam champions along the way and defeating Azarenka in a final for the first time in five attempts. At a tournament in which the four top-ranked players made the semifinals and the top two made the final, the 25-year-old won her 25^th career singles title. She’s now won at least one title every year for the past decade.

Sharapova won this match by doing the usual things well—she hit her groundstrokes hard and served eight aces. She also won by doing some unusual things well—she slid! She moved better on clay than she has in the past and moved better than Azarenka today. Sharapova once called herself a cow on ice, but she looked more like a gazelle in Stuttgart.

Sharapova's groundstrokes were on, often finding the lines, and she made few errors. In all, Sharapova hit 31 winners and just 13 errors. She’s served well this week, and today was no exception. Seven of her eight aces ended games, and Sharapova faced (and fought off) just one break point all match. After Sharapova wrapped up the opening set with an ace, Tennis Channel's Lindsay Davenport called it “really just the perfect set for Maria.”

Azarenka, for her part, started so badly that over on Eurosport, Jo Durie was “stunned.” After three games, Azarenka had won just two points. She didn’t win a single point on her second serve in the first set. Her subpar performance may have had something to do with a wrist problem a trainer looked at between sets. (That was shortly after Azarenka and Sharapova, maybe not looking or perhaps unwilling to make way, bumped into each other as they walked to their seats. A few games later the video was on YouTube.)

By the start of the second set it seemed to affect both of them, because Sharapova’s performance dropped. And surprisingly Azarenka managed to hold her own. The pair stayed on serve until 3-3, when Sharapova broke after an Azarenka backhand into the net. Sharapova held her next two service games at love, and she won her first match point on an Azarenka backhand return error.

Whatever happened today, these two make the WTA rankings feel satisfying. Azarenka and Sharapova are ranked No. 1 and No. 2, and it feels like they are. In recent years, drilling into the data clarified things. Right now it just confirms them. The Race points and prize money rankings, where Azarenka and Sharapova occupy the top two spots, say that, yes, our sense of things is right.

All of which gives the WTA a sense of order some say has been missing lately. Things may be a little unfamiliar (Caroline Wozniacki hasn’t won a title this year) and a little unexpected (neither has Petra Kvitova). But in some ways they’re starting to feel right, thanks to Azarenka, who this year became the player everyone thought she could be and then some. And also to Sharapova, who’s neither unfamiliar nor unexpected. At 25, it seems like she’s been winning forever, and she has the money, titles, and now also a brand new Porsche to show for it.

—Bobby Chintapalli

Rafael Nadal racked up more career milestones in Barcelona today, lifting his seventh Real Club de Tennis trophy, but it was David Ferrer’s bloodied-and-unbowed performance which stole the show despite Rafa's 7-6 (1), 7-5 win.

The aggressive, confident Nadal we saw against Janko Tipsarevic and Fernando Verdasco did not take the court today, replaced instead by a seemingly nervous player who gave up a flurry of errors and was broken at 15 early on by an eager Ferrer. But when leading 2-0, 30-0, Ferrer gave up four consecutive unforced errors to hand the break back. It was the best chance he would have to take the initiative in the match, but by no means the last.

If Nadal seemed nervous, Ferrer gave him plenty of reason to be as the first set progressed. Generating pace from the center of the court, his forehand into the corners was on full display, along with his often underestimated returning. Ferrer also used his backhand more judiciously than I’ve ever seen before. He doesn’t have Novak Djokovic’s down-the-line backhand, but the way Ferrer changed direction off that wing today and used it to dominate from the center of the court was reminiscent of the Serb at his best. Ferrer was also frequently brilliant at net.

It could be seen as ironic or just sad that all that fantastic play on Ferrer’s part succeeded only in pushing Nadal to play better, but Nadal repeatedly came up with his simplest and most aggressive play when down break points, relying on big serves and big forehands to erase danger. After saving a break point on his own serve, Ferrer threw everything at Nadal in a marathon game at 5-6. Nadal snuffed out two set points with big forehands before Ferrer’s best chance came on the third—and went, after he put a tame backhand into the net that could have changed the whole complexion of the match. Two more set points came and went before Nadal finally held. After pushing so hard and getting nowhere, it was perhaps unsurprising that Ferrer crumbled in the tiebreak, losing it tamely, 7-1.

After the hour-and-33-minute marathon that was the first set, and the fact that Ferrer finished it empty-handed, one might have expected the second to be more straightforward. Nadal indeed broke for a 3-1 lead with his best return of the match, but Ferrer broke back when a moment of indecision caused Rafa to net the simplest of balls. Breaking to lead 5-4, Ferrer had his second big chance to grab hold of the match. But again, he couldn’t hold serve as his forehand broke down. After Nadal put in his best service game of the match, he finally mustered some real urgency and aggression on Ferrer’s serve, breaking to love and taking the match with a backhand winner.

Nadal said after the match that Ferrer played better and lost. I never find that particular formulation convincing; surely the better player in a given match is the one who finds their best tennis on the biggest points. That was Ferrer’s signal failure today, in a match where he had ample chances to at least take it to three sets; ultimately it was the margin with which Nadal scored his fourteenth career victory over his compatriot.  

—Hannah Wilks

When you think of Maria Sharapova, you don't think of the word "consistent"—at least I don't, after watching her serve fall apart and her groundstrokes find the net so many times despite so much success in her career. She lives on the edge, much like her opponent in the second Stuttgart semifinal, Petra Kvitova. But the veteran—another word I don't like to associate with the 25-year-old—was a model of consistency in a 6-4, 7-6 (3) win, taking a match that could easily be in a third set as of this writing.

Sharapova was consistent with her backhand all day, which played a large part in the result. She struck it forcefully, accurately, and took what Kvitova gave her, which was plenty. The Czech's forehand was a tale of two types of shot: Her down-the-line variety was effective, but when Kvitova went cross-court and struck it with more spin, Sharapova feasted on it. It put constant pressure on Kvitova, who wasn't sharp to begin with. The world No. 3 gave Sharapova three break chances when serving at 2-2 in the first set, and though she saved them all, a fourth was too much to handle. Sharapova rode the break advantage to the set, thanks to her own fine play and a rash of Kvitova return misses.

It was Sharapova's turn to offer Kvitova chances for advancement in the second set—by the sixth game, the Russian was serving to save her fourth and fifth break points. Which she did, yet two games later, Kvitova, leading 4-3, earned break points six and seven. But the same undoings that plagued Kvitova in the first set resurfaced when she had break chances in the second. When she got a racquet on her return—a rarity—she did not play the pivotal points well. Sharapova, by contrast, played some of her boldest tennis in the second set when the pressure was at its peak. She wiped away both break chances to hold for 4-4.

Up 5-4, Kvitova earned her ninth break point of the set—a set point—and this time she played it well, forcing a short Sharapova reply with an aggressive forehand. It was arguably Kvitova's best cross-court forehand of the match. She followed it with her worst, coming in and bungling a ball destined for the open court into the net. Sharapova held for 5-5.

You simply knew that Kvitova would pay for her inability to break, and Sharapova made her in the next game, taking a 6-5 lead. But Sharapova wasn't done offering Kvitova chances to get back in the match, and on her 11th break point of the set, Kvitova finally won one, when a Sharapova shot landed inches wide. To a tiebreak they went, but in retrospect, Kvitova should never have been in this position.

Sharapova ultimately made Kvitova pay again, playing the tiebreaker as she did the majority of the match's major points—very well. Sharapova's serve was far from a liability today; it often got her out of trouble. She didn't break down on either wing, and on this day was the more consistent of two stars known for their powerful if sometimes erratic shots. Kvitova tempted fate too often, and lost the tiebreaker after 10 points. That's how many break points Sharapova saved in second set. Sure, she lost one—but 10 of 11 is pretty consistent to me.

Victoria Azarenka, who Sharapova lost to in the Australian Open and Indian Wells finals this year, awaits.

—Ed McGrogan

Rafael Nadal’s seventh title in Barcelona looks more likely than ever after today's 6-0, 6-4 defeat of Fernando Verdasco in the semifinals.

Of course, it has never looked precisely unlikely, not when Nadal has won his last 74 matches on clay during the month of April and beaten Verdasco the last 12 times they have played. That streak encompasses scintillating epics, one-sided drubbings, and forgettable, regrettable encounters. Today’s match definitely fell into the latter category.

Nadal played a flawless first set, dismissing any attempt at resistance with the same disdain with which he swatted away a short ball at the net to break in the first game of the match. Throughout the course of the set, during which Verdasco won just 10 points, Nadal was positively strutting and vibrating with energy, looking as fresh and hungry as if winning this tournament wasn’t becoming routine for him. And although Verdasco played well enough, when Nadal is constantly hitting winners from defensive and impossible positions, there is little that anyone can do.

Accepting Nadal’s victories on this surface as inevitable, however, does a disservice both to how hard he and his opponents work, and the progression of the second set demonstrated how much better Verdasco could have done today. Admittedly, Nadal’s level took a dip in the second set, as it is wont to do after such a straightforward first, but it was only after Verdasco was a set and a break down that he started to play the kind of tennis that he should have been playing from the start—tennis which would have given him at least a fighting chance of disrupting Rafa’s stampede towards the final.

In those final three games, we saw Verdasco serve much bigger. Having been previously content to roll his first serves in, presumably in the hope of avoiding the double faults that can plague his game, Verdasco was consistently punished for it and ended the match having won 53 percent of points behind his first serve (he won just 25 percent in the first). Serving bigger let him use his big forehand in its most devastating capacity as a first-strike weapon, and it’s astonishing how such a simple change brings Verdasco’s whole game into focus. He also played much more patiently in the rallies, aiming for consistent depth and penetration on the groundstrokes rather than going for outright winners. He even earned two break points when Nadal was serving for the match before squandering them with missed returns. (I lost count of the number of times Nadal served to Verdasco’s forehand, but it seemed to catch him by surprise almost every time.)

Nothing can change the fact that Nadal does certain things better than Verdasco—movement, consistency, hitting winners from defensive positions (especially out wide on the forehand)—but if Verdasco wants to make some inroads on that head-to-head, now 13-0, he should remember how he played in those final games. Meanwhile, tomorrow it will be David Ferrer’s turn to try everything to reverse a trend of losing against Nadal in an attempt to snatch the Barcelona trophy, which after today seems all but in the six-time titlist's hands.

—Hannah Wilks

by Pete Bodo

Ion Tiriac has a habit of making traditionalists want to hurl. It goes all the way back to the late 1960s and 70s, when his glowering visage (in a brilliant line, a writer once observed that the man's head looked like something found on Easter Island) and notoriety for gamesmanship made him the closest thing tennis produced to a true pariah.

Tiriac retained that controversial reputation as he brilliantly and ruthlessly parlayed his career as player, coach, and manager into a billion-dollar empire in which tennis now plays just a small part, mostly via the Mutua Madrid Open, the combined Masters 1000 event that Tiriac owns.

Most of you know that Tiriac's latest outrage is converting the traditional red clay courts that will be used in Madrid to a previously unknown—heck, non-existent—blue clay. By contrast, his decision a few years ago to employ high-fashion models as "ballkids" seemed a harmless publicity stunt.

The blue clay is a fait accomplit, but Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are disgruntled and were unafraid to make it known to reporters at the Monte Carlo Masters.

"Sometimes change is good," Djokovic said. "I like innovative and creative people. But, on the other hand, it's going to be the only blue clay-court tournament in the world, first time ever in history. To be honest with you. . .  I never played on blue clay. Rafa didn't. Roger didn't. We're going on there and we're going to play for the first time ever.  We don't even know if it's a natural blue clay because natural clay is a red clay. I'm not really too happy about it."

Legitimate complaint, or talking out of both sides of his mouth?

Nadal had a somewhat simpler—perhaps simplistic—objection. He said, "The history of the clay court season was on red, it wasn't on blue. . ."

Legitimate complaint, or transparently weak argument? The history of the U.S. and Australian Opens were written on grass; green-and-maroon (with white lines) was once the only color combination used for hard courts, and what indoor tennis existed back in the day used wood (as in gym-floor wood) as a surface.

Obviously, change happens. Why shouldn't it happen on clay?

Personally, I'm not enamored of the idea of blue clay. But having just watched Monte Carlo on television just the other week, I can see the beauty of actually being able to see the ball on television—something that's aided by having an HD-based "entertainment center" instead of a mere TV.

This practical and highly germane point hasn't really been conveyed effectively by Tiriac's minions until now, which explains why the Madrid tournament's communication department sent an advisory memo on Thursday, explaining that a study carried out by an outfit called the Technological Institute of Optic Colour and Professional Image (AIDO) conclusively proved that both spectators courtside and those watching at home on LCD and LED television screens had a "higher" and "more favorable" contrast (to spectating, we assume) on blue clay.

I wouldn't put it past Tiriac to have hastily convened this AIDO for his own purposes, but I looked it up and it checks out.

This controversy raises exactly the kind of question a true iconoclast and original thinker like Tiriac has a way of broaching; convention, habit, and tradition be damned. If the ATP tour and the hard-court Grand Slam events have widely embraced blue courts (it wasn't so long ago that the hard courts at the Australian Open and U.S. Open were green instead of the current blue), why shouldn't the red-clay tournaments do the same? 

We'll see how these blue courts work out, but don't mistake this move by Tiriac as some sort of PR stunt. He's exercising his god-given talent as a devil's advocate to shake up our way of thinking with a completely legitimate challenge—yet again. Such fiercely independent minds ought to be given free rein, and at least one top pro is willing to give the devil's advocate the benefit of the doubt.

"For the players, it would be better for it to be on the red clay," Andy Murray. "But at the same time, I've watched sometimes in Madrid. It's very difficult to see the ball. I understand the reasons for doing it."

All we can do is wait, keep an open mind, and see. Still, I have a feeling that no matter how it works out, Wimbledon will not be receptive to the idea of blue grass courts.