The ball picks up speed on grass, and the tours do, too. When a “season” consists of two weeks of tune-ups and one Grand Slam tournament, you have to make the most of it. As I was finishing my write-up on this weekend’s finals on Monday, the top seed at the women’s event in Eastborune, Agnieszka Radwanska, had been upset, and the top seed at the men’s event in 's-Hertogenbosch, David Ferrer, had withdrawn.
With most of the star attractions heading for practice sessions and sponsor frolics in London this week, it should be a (brief) time for the second tier to shine. The conventional wisdom says you can’t win the week before a major, and also do well at the major that follows. But Genie Bouchard and Ernests Gulbis proved that wrong at Roland Garros. Can anyone do the same this week and at Wimbledon?