U.S. Open Quallies - Day three

I skipped day two of the qualifying tournament to get some errands done and to better prepare myself for the two weeks of insane tennis consumption which is about to take place. But I was back today to see second round action (I'll miss the last round, because I'm heading up to New Haven for the semis tomorrow), which was even more fun than the first.

I spent less time hopping from match to match, and sat down to watch more continuous tennis. I watched two matches in their entirety: Bellucci-Dimitrov and Young-Olaso. Dimitrov was occasionally brilliant, but Bellucci was much more solid, and won in straight sets. Still, if Dimitrov can solidify his game a bit, there's no reason he can't be an excellent player. Bellucci is already on his way there.

Olaso, who I had never heard of before, tore the cover off the ball, but also gifted Young an amazing amount of unforced errors, so "the Donald" was able to win even though he didn't play that well up until the very end. He was broken twice, but was able to break six times. But Young will have to step up his game once he makes it to the main draw (I expect he will).

I also watched Laura Robson, the up-and-coming British teen, who played well but showed how young she was - 15, if you're keeping track. Her opponent was a decade older but didn't act like it. It was a fairly petulant match all around, but the tennis was okay. For as young as she is, she definitely could go far.

The other match I watched was Carsten Ball against Rik de Voest, who was impressing me by taking the first set and going strong in the second, so I left to watch some other matches. I came back later to find him in a third set tiebreak, which he really stole from de Voest, who came to the net and made unforced errors on three different points in the breaker.

There was lots of really fun tennis - I got to see Josselin Ouanna, the French player who made it to the third round at Roland Garros this year. He played great, and I think he could make some noise here. I also saw Somdev Devvarman come through a tight match. He could win a round, as well.

I was sad to see Kimiko Date Krumm lose, though. Ah well!

But I watched some excellent tennis, got some great photos, and got mildly sunburned. I will be better about applying sunscreen in the next two weeks.

It's looking like the qualifying tournament is going to be an excellent warm-up. Tomorrow, we'll know who gets those coveted spots, and over the weekend we'll see how they fit into the draw. There are two qualifier-qualifier match-ups in the first round, as well as some pretty safe opponents like Simone Greul, Potito Starace, or Christophe Rochus. But there are also qualifiers who will get rewarded with Nikolay Davydenko, Tommy Haas, or U.S. Open series champ Sam Querrey. That will be a jump in the level of competition, no question.