Nations Cup: Spain reign again.

It's been another top week for Spain's men, as they grabbed wins in both ATP tournaments to extend their lead at the top of the standings.

WHAT IS NATIONS CUP?

The Nations Cup is a special ranking system that assesses the performances of tennis players of both genders from a specific country - the nation with the greatest overall success over the course of the season will be declared the Nations Cup champion.
See the 'How it works' section below for a full explanation of the scoring system.

THE STANDINGS:

Nicolas Almagro (pictured) beat home player Robin Soderling in the final of the Swedish Open to lift his first title of 2010. Soderling had been taken to three sets in every round in Bastad, and Almagro took full advantage to claim his sixth career title against the French Open runner-up.
Albert Montanes also benefited from facing a struggling final opponent in Germany, as France's Gael Monfils was forced to concede in the second set in Stuttgart after aggravating a foot injury picked up earlier in the tournament.
Despite Spaniards making up three of the four semi-finalists in both men's tournaments, Spain missed out on bonus points for providing both finalists as David Ferrer and Daniel Gimeno lost their semis, while Almagro and Montanes both overcame compatriots in their last four clashes. Mind you, with Spain now extending their lead at the top of the standings to 367 points, that's just splitting hairs.
On the women's side, Kaia Kanepi's win over Flavia Pennetta in Palermo sees Estonia get their first points on the board and leap into the standings at 33. Pennetta's runner-up spot and Romina Oprandi's place in the last four sees Italy open up a gap between them and ninth-placed Switzerland.
In Prague, Agnes Svazay continues to fly the flag for Hungary with her win over Barbora Zahlavova Strycova in the final. Svazay has scored all but nine of Hungary's points in the Nations Cup so far this season, proving her win in Budapest the previous week was no fluke. 

Nations Cup rankings (last week's position in brackets):

1. (1) Spain -- 1815
2. (2) USA -- 1248
3. (3) Serbia -- 606
4. (5) Czech Republic -- 499
5. (4) Russia -- 487
6. (6) France -- 479
7. (7) Belgium -- 444
8. (8) Italy -- 391
9. (9) Switzerland -- 366
10. (11) Sweden -- 277
11. (10) Australia -- 270
12. (12) Croatia -- 252
13. (13) Great Britain -- 210
14. (14) China -- 202
15. (15) Germany -- 168
16. (16) Israel -- 123
17. (17) Argentina -- 118
18. (18) Austria -- 108
19. (19) Latvia -- 104
20. (20) Denmark -- 103

HOW IT WORKS:

Players are awarded points for reaching the semi-finals or further of a tournament with the total number of points for each player then being added to their country's tally.
The number of points awarded are weighted not only to reflect how far a player progressed (with the tournament winner receiving more points than the runner-up and more again than the beaten semi-finalists) but also to reflect the difficulty of the tournament.
Thus a Grand Slam win will earn a player 200 points, a Masters series win 100 points and so on through the four tournament categories.
And just to add to the confusion, a country will also be awarded bonus points if they provide both finalists at a tournament.