Apparently Rafa was only the first in a string of toppled giants. Roger Federer lost a tightly-contested two-set match to Radek Stepanek in the Rome Masters quarterfinals 7-6(4), 7-6(7). I don’t know which type of loss is harder: the one where you get completely blown off the court or the one where you’re so incredibly close but can’t finish off the few vital points that would have swung the match in your favor. Either way a loss is still a loss and an exit from a tournament and that’s what Federer did in Rome.

Who’s going to win Rome now? Hercules was downed in the second round and now the King has bowed out after a tough battle. Andy Roddick is still in the mix and is a set up on Tommy Robredo. Behind Rafa and Roger losing, the fact that Roddick is still hanging around is the biggest surprise of this tourney.

But wait - there’s more! Serena Williams couldn’t hang on to her winning streak and Dinara Safina ousted Big Serve Serena in three sets. Safina dropped the first but dominated the second and managed to close out a tight third set to put her in the German Open semifinals. Safina…Safina…that name sounds pretty familiar. I feel like I just talked about her…oh yeah! She just beat the world No. 1!

And this is how Andy Roddick keeps his world ranking intact. He may not have won a Grand Slam in years but the guy keeps on winning the little ATP tournaments in between the big ones.

Roddick rolled Radek Stepanek 6-4, 7-5 in the SAP Open final. The victory handed Roddick his 24th career title.

Yay, Roddick. Now bring some of that mojo to the big stage.

In other news, do we have a new set of American double stars? Scott Lipsky and David Martin (can we get any more generic than David Martin?) beat Bob and Mike Bryan (oh, yes, we can get more generic…) 7-6, 7-5 to win their first career title.

Word on the streets is that 12th-ranked WTA player Nicole Vaidisova has filed papers for a marriage license with men’s professional tennis player Radek Stepanek.

Supposedly the announcement will appear Sunday but - once again - it’s that whole People magazine effect. I don’t really care whether it’s true or not. Neither do you probably but it’s something to talk about and isn’t that the point of a blog?