The grass court season is throwing up its characteristic jamboree of eye catching results.  Top of the list was Dustin Brown’s 6-4 6-1 victory over Rafael Nadal in Halle.  Before you say anything about Rafa, Brown played a remarkable match.  He absolutely went to town on Nadal’s serve and hit a shed load of return winners.  He also played three spectacular lob winners in the second set and dominated at the net.  Everyone will want to avoid Brown in the Wimbledon draw.  Today was his absolute peak, but he can be so erratic and lose to pretty much anyone on the tour.  He is such an entertaining player to watch though and I was in hysterics today.  His slam dunk winner in the second set was class!

Andy Murray also fell in Queens action after wasting eight set points in the first set of his match with Radek Stepanek.  He eventually lost in straight sets, 7-6(10) 6-2.  This loss meant absolutely nothing for Murray in regards to his hopes for Wimbledon.  I didn’t think he would win this week because it is easy to forget he had a very tiring run at the French Open and little time to adapt to the grass.  The media coverage surrounding Murray and Mauresmo is already driving me potty.  All I will say is that I think it is a really cool partnership and it will take time.  I’m not going to address the situation any further because i’ll start ranting.  The Birmingham draw has been cut into mulch and the hilarious thing is that it’s no surprise at all.  One of Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, Kirsten Flipkens, Kimiko Date-Krumm or Casey Dellacqua will reach the final from the bottom half of this PREMIER event.  The top half *could* produce a semi-final between Ana Ivanovic and Sloane Stephens, which would be great.  My predictions have been horrendous this week, but it is so difficult predicting what is going to happen on the grass! I’m hoping that I will do a little bit better at Wimbledon…

Poll Results: 58% correctly went for Stephens to beat Riske and 33% correctly went for Dellacqua to beat Stosur.

This preview is now void because Dolgopolov has pulled out of Queens due to injury.

1. Grigor Dimitrov v Alexandr Dolgopolov (Queens, QF)

Grigor Dimitrov

Personally, I found the line-up of third round matches in Queens to be very uninspiring.  The draw for the quarter-finals is much better and could see some fascinating match-ups on the grass.  Grigor Dimitrov and Alexandr Dolgopolov have both had excellent years, but endured miserable early exits at Roland Garros.  They have rebounded strongly to set up an intriguing quarter-final at Queens.  Dimitrov struggled to close out the first set of his third round match against Edouard Roger-Vasselin; he sealed the first set on tiebreak having earlier served for the set at *5-3 and edged into the quarters in a tight two setter, 7-6(3) 6-4.

Dolgopolov has enjoyed straight set wins over Denis Istomin and Jarkko Nieminen although he didn’t have to finish his match on Thursday as Nieminen was forced to retire at 6-4 4-2 down in their third round match.  Dimitrov and Dolgopolov have split their only two matches.  Dimitrov won the most recent of those encounters, 6-3 6-2 in Basel.  I think this is a good surface for Dimitrov and he showed his potential with a run to the semi-finals of Queens in 2012.  Dolgopolov has become much more consistent this year, but still remains a little streaky with the potential to play both stunning good and stunning bad tennis at times.  Dimitrov for the win.

Prediction: Dimitrov d. Dolgopolov in 2 tight sets

WTA Birmingham Quarter-Final Predictions

Ana Ivanovic d. Klara Koukalova in 2 tight sets

Sloane Stephens d. Zhang Shuai in 2 tight sets

Kirsten Flipkens d. Barbora Zahlavova Strycova in 3 sets

Casey Dellacqua d. Kimiko Date-Krumm in 3 sets

ATP Queens Quarter-Final Predictions

Stan Wawrinka d. Marinko Matosevic in 2 sets

Kevin Anderson d. Radek Stepanek in 3 sets

Tomas Berdych d. Feliciano Lopez in 3 sets

ATP Halle Quarter-Final Predictions

Philipp Kohlschreiber d. Dustin Brown in 2 tight sets

Alejandro Falla d. Peter Gojowczyk in 3 sets

Kei Nishikori d. Steve Johnson in 2 sets

Roger Federer d. Yen-Hsun Lu in 2 tight sets