Clay season? Well... yeah.

Internazionali BNL d'Italia, Rome

Here we are, clay season after USO. Weird. Also we have an ATP Masters 1000 and a WTA Premier 5 right after a GS. Expect more weird stuff to happen.

Some of the USO protagonists will undoubtedly withdraw from Rome. Serena already did, we'll see who else follows suit. On the other hand, those who didn't show up in NY will have their week in the spotlight. Draws are out, but first the mandatory lovely pictures.

Hey, it's Rome, no more to say.

Stadio Pietrangeli - prettiest court in tennis

The Women

WTA Premier 5 (900 points). 56 players draw with top 8 seeds having byes. Top 20 players not showing up in Rome for various reasons: Barty, Andreescu, Serena, Osaka, Sabalenka, Kvitova, Keys. 

1st Quarter

Halep[1] v Vekic[16]

Also here Sevastova, Giorgi v Yastremska, Anisimova.

Rybakina[10] v Martic[8]

Alexandrova, Bouzkova v Tomljanovic, Putintseva are in here too.

2nd Quarter

Kenin[3] v Kerber[15]

Also in here Azarenka v Venus, Zvonareva, Siniakova.

Muguruza[9] v Konta[7]

Others in this section: Stephens, Jabeur v Gauff.

3rd Quarter

Bertens[5] v Vondrousova[12]

A bucket of qualifiers are in here and Swiatek and Hercog.

Kontaveit[14] v Svitolina[4]

Also in here Garcia, Kuznetsova, Pavlyuchenkova v Zhang.

4th Quarter

Bencic[6] v Mertens[11]

Goerges, Ostapenko, Hsieh are in here too.

Riske[13] v Pliskova[2]

Other notables: Teichmann, Strycova v Kudermetova.

The Men

ATP Masters 1000. Like the women, 56 draw with 8 byes but there's a twist, along with the ranking byes ATP gives performance byes to USO SFists. But it looks like the only one that will take this opportunity is PCB (who gets straight to Nadal in R2, maybe Rafa will hurt some official too? We can only dream...). Thiem, Zverev and Medvedev are a no show in The Eternal City. Federer took the whole rest of year off too.

1st Quarter

Djokovic[1] v FAA[16]

Edmund is in here too.

Wawrinka[10] v Monfils[5]

Also in here De Minaur, Nishikori v ARV.

2nd Quarter

Berrettini[4] v Garin[14]

Others in here: Struff, Fritz, Coric.

The Khach[11] v Goffin[6]

Also in here Ruud, Basilashvili, Cilic.

3rd Quarter

Fognini[7] v The Shap[12]

Anderson and Querrey are in here too.

Dimitrov[15] v The Tsi[3]

Also in here Nishioka, Paire v Sinner.

4th Quarter

Schwartzman[8] v Rublev[9]

Also in here Millman, Evans.

Raonic[13] v Nadal[2]

Also in here Mannarino, Lajovic, PCB.

WOMEN'S DRAW

WOMEN'S DOUBLES DRAW
MEN'S DRAW
MEN'S DOUBLES DRAW
OOP

Novak Djokovic - His fifth

Simona Halep - 3rd time's a charm

And the unfortunate coda again:

• Live and up to date stats about coronavirus

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• Daily youtube update with the scientific side of the fight against covid-19 , explained in pretty intelligible terms. (That links to a playlist, just click on the freshest clip. Or you know... get really into it from the beginning.)