Gael Monfils claims his second career title in Open de Moselle

Now that the US Open has ended, the excitement of the tournaments kind of slows down until the Year End Masters Cup or the Davis Cup finals. In my opinion, Spain, is very likely to win the Davis Cup, especially if they play the finals on clay. At the moment they just have the best players on their team, Nadal, Verdasco, and Ferrer. Verdasco's, game is well suited to hard courts and Nadal is just about unstoppable on clay. They're already the defending champions and they're such a well rounded team I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that they will win the Davis Cup 2009.

As for the other smaller tournaments, something kind of surprising happened this past week. Gael Monfils claimed an ATP title. That might sound kind of harsh but it's been a long time since he's won an ATP level tournament. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see it, but when I found out about it later on, I was thrilled. Monfils, is one of my favorite players and I'm surprised that he hasn't won more title by this point in his career. He's been in 6 finals since winning the Prokom Open, in 2005 but this time, he was the one, walking away with the trophy. Maybe this is the start of something new for him or maybe it's just a surprise win that won't amount to much of anything. I hope it's beginning of something good for him, but we'll have to wait and see.

Most of the top players are now playing in Bangkok, Thailand. The French guys seem to be doing pretty well over there. Gasquet and Monfils, both had strong performances in the early rounds and the defending champion Tsonga is now into the quarter-finals, even though he had to struggle to get past Ernests Gulbis. As for Thailand, I like Tsonga's, chances of retaining his title there, although I could see Gilles Simon, taking it from him. Personally, I hope that Simon does win, he's #9 in the world right now and a victory here would pretty much solidify his chances of qualifying for the Year End Masters Cup.