Week in Preview: Quantity over quality as clay spreads across Europe

The first week of May is about quantity. There’s clay-court tennis across Europe, and it spills over the borders into Africa and Asia as well. The quality, in the form of the top players, returns this coming weekend in Madrid. Here’s a look at the five tournaments that will tide us over until then. A few high-profile players are making their returns on the men’s side.

*Munich, Germany

$650,000; 250 ranking points

Red clay

Draw is here*

When you hold a tournament in Germany, you find Germans to play it. The BMW Open has 10 natives in its 28-man draw. That includes 39-year-old Tommy Haas, a winner on Monday morning, and 20-year-old Alexander Zverev, who has played a couple of head-scratchingly poor matches over the last two weeks and could use a few wins. Also here are No. 5 seed Phillip Kohlschreiber, No. 6 seed Mischa Zverev, No. 7 seed Jan-Lennard Struff and a German wild card named Maximilian Marterer. He sounds like he was made for more important things than tennis.

The top two seeds, though, Gael Monfils and Roberto Bautista Agut, are not German. Can Monfils, who hasn’t played since Indian Wells, start to put together a run toward Roland Garros?

*Estoril, Portugal

$650,000; 250 ranking points

Red clay

Draw is here*

Estoril was supposed to feature two big-name returns to the tour, but will have to make do with one.

Nick Kyrgios had been slated to start his clay season here, before pulling out last week to attend his grandfather’s funeral in Australia.

But Juan Martin del Potro, whom we last saw losing to Roger Federer in Miami, is in Estoril, and it could be an important week for him. Delpo has been mostly brilliant in his return to the tour over the last year, but he’s still ranked just 33rd, in large part because of hard luck with draws. Now, as the fifth seed in Estoril, and with no Top 10 players in sight, he has a chance to make some progress, earn some ranking points and build some momentum heading into the clay Masters events in Madrid and Rome.

Also here: No. 1 seed Pablo Carreño Busta; No. 2 seed Richard Gasquet

*Prague, Czech Republic

$227,000; WTA International

Red Clay

Draw is here*

Life comes at you fast during the clay swing, especially if you’re a tournament director. Czech native and top seed Karolina Pliskova has already been eliminated at her home-country event, in straight sets, by Camila Giorgi.

Still here: No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki, Lucie Safarova, Katerina Siniakova, Barbora Strycova, Jelena Jankovic

*Istanbul, Turkey

$600,000; 250 ranking points

Red clay

Draw is here*

Istanbul is the third ATP event with a big reveal this week: Milos Raonic, who has been nursing a hamstring injury, will return as the top seed. Red clay may not be his surface, but he has been a quarterfinalist in Madrid and Paris.

Also here: No. 2 seed Marin Cilic, Borna Coric, and Karen Khachanov, who appears to have worked himself out of his early-season slump.

*Rabat, Morocco

$227,000; WTA International

Red clay

Draw is here*

Anastasia Pavluchenkova and Timea Bacsinszky are the top two seeds in Rabat.

Also here: Stuttgart champ Laura Siegemund, wild card Francesca Schiavone, Andrea Petkovic, and four Americans: Lauren Davis, Alison Riske, Varvara Lepchenko, and CiCi Bellis