The clay court season has already started, and the first clay masters tournament is upon us. This tournament has been dominated by Federer and Nadal in the past with Roger reaching the final 3 straight times and Nadal defending his title. But the build up to this year's edition has been interesting. First, Roger claimed that he wouldn't take part in this tournament. Then he entered the draw as a wild card, and he made sure to get married before the tournament! This is the first tournament that Roger Federer enters as a married man, and it'd be interesting to see how things work out.

If you live in the U.S, you are going to have a lot of trouble finding decent coverage of this event, unless you get the Tennis Channel.

• Tennis Channel: the tennis channel does cover a few matches. The quality of commentary and the coverage always leaves something to be desired. But if you have tennis channel with your digital TV package, you may as well use it to watch tennis. Unfortunately, not a lot people get the Tennis Channel.
  
• Satellite PC: one of the best ways to watch tennis is to watch it online on a satellite PC package. Just because tennis is not televised in the U.S. doesn't mean there aren't any international channels with tennis coverage. Internet TV packages such as JohnQ and DishNetPC are the way to go if you got no coverage. Here is how they work. These packages allow you access to international channels, so even if this event is not covered in your country, you can always tune in to the international channels that do cover Monte Carlo Masters.
  
• PPV: if you have a budget to work with, you can always choose PPV packages such as Tennis TV to watch all the tournaments and matches online. The passes are fairly affordable, but the package is made for tennis fanatics. If you live and breath tennis, PPV is the way to go.
• Free Streams: some companies offer free streams for sporting events. The quality will be much lower and the coverage is not available in all countries, but it's better than having no coverage. There was a time that TVUplayer had coverage of some of the events, but that hasn't been the case lately.

There you have it. Whether you want to watch Monte Carlo or a small tournament, there is a good chance you can find decent coverage using one of the above options. Not all events are covered the same way on cable. You are going to have less trouble watching the grand slams on cable, but those smaller tournaments (not suggesting Miami Masters is a small one) are tougher to catch on TV.

Feel free to add more options if you can think of others avenues to catch tennis live.

Watch Monte Carlo Masters In:

• U.S.: Tennis Channel
• U.K: BSkyB
• Australia: Fox Sports
• Canada: TSN
• French: Sports+, Canal+
• India: ESPN Star
  

[1] NADAL, Rafael ESP vs Bye
KUNITSYN, Igor RUS vs CHELA, Juan Ignacio ARG
SAFIN, Marat RUS vs HEWITT, Lleyton AUS
QUALIFIER vs [15] STEPANEK, Radek CZE

[9]MONFILS, Gael FRA vs TIPSAREVIC, Janko SRB
SODERLING, Robin SWE vs BOLELLI, Simone ITA
QUALIFIER vs LJUBICIC, Ivan CRO
BYE vs [5] DEL POTRO, Juan Martin ARG

[4] MURRAY, Andy GBR vs BYE
HANESCU, Victor ROU vs QUALIFIER
QUALIFIER vs BERDYCH, Tomas CZE
QUALIFIER vs [14] CILIC, Marin CRO

[12] NALBANDIAN, David ARG vs MATHIEU, Paul-Henri FRA
ACASUSO, Jose ARG vs GRANOLLERS, Marcel ESP
KARLOVIC, Ivo CRO vs SERRA, Florent FRA
BYE vs [8] DAVYDENKO, Nikolay RUS

[7] VERDASCO, Fernando vs BYE
GULBIS, Ernests LAT vs KOHLSCHREIBER, Philipp GER
GICQUEL, Marc FRA vs SCHWANK, Eduardo (ARG)
LOPEZ, Feliciano ESP vs [10] FERRER, David ESP

[16] ALMAGRO, Nicolas ESP vs MONTANES, Albert ESP
LISNARD, Jean-Rene MON vs ROCHUS, Christophe BEL
BENNETEAU, Julien FRA vs QUALIFIER
BYE vs [3] DJOKOVIC, Novak SRB

[6] SIMON, Gilles FRA vs BYE
QUALIFIER vs KIEFER, Nicolas GER
CHARDY, Jeremy FRA vs MONACO, Juan ARG
SCHUETTLER, Rainer GER vs [11] ROBREDO, Tommy ESP

[13] WAWRINKA, Stanislas SUI vs TROICKI, Viktor SRB
ANDREEV, Igor RUS vs VASSALLO ARGUELLO, Martin ARG
SEPPI, Andreas ITS vs MELZER, Jurgen AUT
BYE vs [2] FEDERER, Roger SUI [2]

Games Start on April 12th, 2009