It is the start of the grass court season, except for the tournament being played in Nuremberg, and I am personally looking forward to getting down to watch a bunch of tennis over the next month or so.
After visiting Roland Garros, this is usually the time of the year when I can invest in getting down to Queens Club in West London for the pre-Wimbledon warm up tournament that takes place. This tournament may only be an ATP 250 event, but there has always been the feeling that it is a touch more important as a lot of the big names in the Men's game will arrive to hone their skills ahead of the third Grand Slam tournament of the season.
At the same time as London, the tournament in Halle attracts the likes of Roger Federer, while the WTA Tour makes a stop in Birmingham for a grass court event there.
I have made a couple of outright picks from the tournaments in London and Halle and they can be found here.
There is a lot of tennis starting on Monday, which is not usually the norm at the beginning of the week in tournaments outside of the Masters and Grand Slam level, but that is down to the fact that there are big fields in Birmingham and London more than anything else.
Lleyton Hewitt - 4.5 games v Michael Russell: Lleyton Hewitt showed some real signs of form in his opening loss in Paris last time out, but he has never been as comfortable on the clay courts as he has on the grass courts and I am expecting the veteran Australian to have more success here than he enjoyed last season.
Hewitt actually had a bad draw at both this tournament (Ivo Karlovic) and at Wimbledon (Jo-Wilfried Tsonga), but he did reach the Final of a grass court event in Newport following the third Grand Slam of the season. Hewitt also pushed Novak Djokovic to three sets at the Olympic Games on the grass and I do think this is now the surface where he can do most damage.
That is down to the fact that playing on grass doesn't come naturally to a lot of players on the Tour and he faces one of the few players that are older than him on the Tour in the form of Michael Russell in the First Round here.
Russell is a tough competitor, but he has had a tough season so far and is coming off a hamstring issue that forced him to retire mid-match against Martin Klizan in Paris. The grass courts haven't been the American's best surface, but he does have a decent serve and will pose some problems for Hewitt in this one.
He has previous against Hewitt too having taken him to five sets at the Australian Open in 2007, but I think this one will be a little more routine for the Australian and I like Hewitt to come through 75, 63.
Grigor Dimitrov - 4.5 games v Dudi Sela: You would think anyone nicknamed 'Baby Fed' would be a natural on the grass courts and Grigor Dimitrov showed he could be very capable on the surface with a run to the Semi Final here at Queens last season.
He has a decent looking match up against Dudi Sela in his First Round here and I do believe the Bulgarian will be far too good for his opponent in this one. Sela doesn't have the big weapons to really hurt Dimitrov consistently and this does represent a good way to build rhythm for the new face of Men's tennis.
Sela didn't bother getting involved in the clay court season and spent a lot of that time playing Challenger tournaments on the hard courts with some contrasting results, while the Israeli has also played a grass court tournament last week in Nottingham. However, he was comfortably beaten in the Second Round there and Dimitrov is certainly a step up in class.
I think this will be a routine victory for Dimitrov and I see him winning 63 63.
MY PICKS: Lleyton Hewitt - 4.5 Games @ 1.92 Bet 365 (2 Units)
Grigor Dimitrov - 4.5 Games @ 2.00 Pinnacle (2 Units)
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