Halle-ujah

With a snap of fingers, it's grass court season.

Argentines won't be seen for a month, half the Spanish Armada are on vacation, and otherwise obscure Croatians are suddenly major threats. It's a magical time of the year, when the tennis world gets turned on its ear. In grass world, those old-fashioned net rushers (when they remove the antique dust) will beat the baseline bashers. Breaks of serve usually mean the end of a set. Diving is safe and encouraged. Andy Roddick has reason to live.

And, of course, the Roger Federer mystique grows and begins anew. Apparently nobody wants any part of this guy on sod, judging from the disparity in quality between the Gerry Weber and Queen's Club. The Stella Artois Championships is a veritable murderer's row of big names: Nadal, Ljubicic, Roddick, Blake, Ancic, Hewitt, Agassi, Grosjean... the list goes on. This is a Masters Series-quality draw. The Halle entry list, on the other hand, is a bit more lacking. There's Federer, Nalbandian, Kiefer, Baghdatis, Haas, Safin... that's about it. We don't know if Baghdatis is a factor on grass, and Haas and Safin probably aren't going to get especially far (but they could). Aside from a possible finals matchup against the crafty Keifer, Roger should steamroll this field (though a Santoro-Federer matchup on grass would be a lot of fun to see). People are simply afraid of Roger on grass and they'll do anything they can to play him. That or the fact Queen's Club is a stone's throw away from All-England... but that reason isn't as fun.

Agassi made his return to the ATP after skipping the clay court season (a wise decision, seeing as he can't play on clay without hurting himself these days) in a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Tim Henman. First, it's great to see Henman playing well and winning; I'd love to see him make a deep run. Andre- as usual- was disappointed in the loss, saying he hoped to play better. I'm not sure what planet AA has been living on, but when you play three tournaments since the US Open and you're against one of the most celebrated grass court players of the last decade, 4 and 4 is pretty good. You got a pretty crappy draw, sure, but you're simply too rusty. Send some flowers to the draw committee over at Wimbledon so you can get a couple matched under your belt before playing anyone threatening. Sorry, but you just can't take a virutal nine-month layoff and expect to jump back into it, especially when that's your first match on grass since 2004 (a loss to Igor Andreev), even if you did practice with Andy Murray. I don't know how he'll fare at Wimbledon. It really depends on the draw.

Nadal is entered into the singles and doubles for Queen's Club, a move I really like. That's going to force him to work on the volleying and get him more match play. All players under 21 should be playing as much dubs as they can, it's a great way to get better quickly. That said, I like Mardy Fish's chances against him Wednesday.

There are a lot of interesting doubles pairings in this tournament as well: Blake/Fish, Grosjean/Murray (does the French Federation know he's working with a Scot? Is this allowed?), Mathieu/Monfils, along with many of the usual suspects. That's one of the benefits of the truncated grass season; you see more players playing doubles. Maybe Johnny Mac can be convinced to play in Nottingham next week; I bet he'd show some players how to do it on grass.

Wayne Arthurs lost in the first round of qualifying Saturday. I remember when he was a guy people didn't want to see because of his height and his serve... now he can't qualify for Queen's Club. It's amazing how quickly some people fade (I'm talking to you, Rainer Schuettler).