Your Call, July 8th

[Pete here. Thanks to Rosia for putting up this Your Call while I'm getting myself organized. I'll be back later with some thoughts on Roger Federer, and the rest of the week will mostly be spent dealing with Wimbledon-related items].

Good morning. Apparently, some live tennis is being played this week, though from the comments section yesterday, a non-aficionado would never have guessed this. Perhaps no-one has any TV coverage - here  in the UK, there's none until the semifinals of the ATP's grasscourt tournament in Newport. The ladies are back on clay this week - in Budapest  and Palermo. The rest of the ATP is finishing off its claycourt season too, after it was rudely interrupted by a month on grass. There's not much time to fit it all in - the North American hardcourt swing begins next week, in Indianapolis, and a week later, the Masters Series event in Toronto will be under way, two weeks earlier than last year, which will make the ranking points situation interesting for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, with Rafael Nadal having withdrawn from the claycourt event in Stuttgart, last year's runner-up Stanislas Wawrinka has been recruited to take his spot - though at the time of writing, he's still listed as the number one seed for the tournament in Gstaad. David Ferrer heads the field for the claycourt event in Bastad, Sweden. Mysteriously, Nikolay Davydenko has not been spotted competing anywhere since crashing out in the first round of Wimbledon in his only grasscourt appearance of the year; nor does Kolya appear on the entry lists for further tournaments on the red stuff in Amersfoort or Kitzbuhel next week. Interpol is rumoured to be working on the case.

-- 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.