Good afternoon. This is today's thread for discussing ongoing tennis, whether it's Marin Cilic's defeat of Paul-Henri Mathieu in Gstaad, or Marat Safin's loss in three sets at the hands of Potito Starace in Bastad. Studying the draws for the four ATP tournaments taking place this week, all squashed into this one week in the calendar to accommodate the Olympics, Stanislas Wawrinka has disappeared without trace from the draw in Stuttgart (in which he suddenly appeared after Rafael Nadal's withdrawal) and is currently playing against Stephane Bohli in Gstaad.
I've also noticed something else - all four of this week's ATP tournaments have first-round byes for their top four seeds, cutting the draws to 28 (from 32 last year, with no first-round byes). The same is true for the WTA draw in Budapest. This shrinkage of the fields seems to be the cost of compressing the calendar this year (less top players to go around among the tournaments?), but I can't remember the last time I saw this happen. Nor can I remember a time when there were four ATP tournaments going on simultaneously. Can anyone else?
-- Rosangel Valenti
Note: As always, "Your Call" is the daily thread specifically for the purpose of getting together on the cyber-sofa to discuss or call ongoing matches, or hot tennis topics of the day; It's the"Crisis Center" thread for those weeks when there are no Grand Slams, Masters, or Fed or Davis Cup in progress. You can go off-topic here if you like as well. This makes it easier for you to stay on-topic at "premium" posts. For going off-topic, you also have Monday Net Posts and Deuce Club on a regular basis.