The rain delay! So I made the trek up to New Haven today, hoping to catch two men's semis and one of the women's semis, but was met with a full day of gray skies and frustrating drizzle. At the pilot pen, not a single ball was hit today. I hung around and had lunch with my friend and former coworker, waiting to see if the weather would dry up, but signs were not so good. After a few hours, we abandoned the wait. I hung around the city until about six o'clock, just to see if things were going to improve before I hopped on the train and headed back to New York. Alas, they did not. The highlight of the day was that I did see Darren Cahill and Mary-Jo Fernandez, but they were clearly peeved about the delay, so I did not bother them.
Fortunately, I did not miss much by skipping the last round of the U.S. Open quallies, either. They apparently just got in a handful of matches and will have to finish tomorrow. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with this plan - first of all, tomorrow is also supposed to be Arthur Ashe Kids Day, and while it might be interesting for kids to be able to see the qualifiers playing on the outer courts, I doubt that the players, who are playing for a guaranteed $19,000 payday and the chance to get much more in terms of prize money and points, are going to be thrilled about the possibility of groups of children wandering around the grounds.
On the other hand, that might not even be an issue! Tropical Storm Danny is working its way up the northeast, and the forecast does not look good for tomorrow or for Sunday. While things should be clearing up by Monday, when the tournament proper is slated to start, this could still wreak havoc with the scheduling.
First of all, if the Pilot Pen can't play both the semis and the finals tomorrow (they seem to have played the women's semis at indoor courts this evening, at least according to the revised schedule), then their play will have to continue onto Sunday. Hopefully, the U.S. Open schedulers will try to accommodate the players remaining in the draw (Querrey, Verdasco, Andreev, and Acasuso, plus whoever is left on the women's side, two out of Pennetta, Wozniacki, Mauresmo, and Vesnina) by giving them Tuesday starts, at least.
This could be complicated if the qualifiers can't finish tomorrow, because if they have to finish up on Sunday, it would be somewhat unfair to make them play again on Monday (ideally, all the qualifiers would have had two whole days of rest), but the quallies are scattered around both sides of the draw, so that would be tough to do the usual top half/bottom half on alternating days.
And it all gets worse if no play can happen in New York or New Haven during Saturday OR Sunday! This is not terribly likely, but it's possible. They have had to leave tournaments unfinished before, but that's certainly not ideal for the Pilot Pen. I'm not sure what their contingency plans are. Regardless, if the forecast holds and the weather clears up by Monday, that could be a very interesting day at the Open. I'll be there, either way!
Even if qualifying play or the New Haven tournament does finish up tomorrow or Sunday, I probably won't make it out to see anything. I have some work I need to finish up in the next few days, since I don't expect that I'll be getting anything done once Monday rolls around.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
U.S. Open Quallies!
I know that we're still at the end of the U.S. Open warm-up tournaments, with the Pilot Pen going on this week. But since I moved to New York last year, my focus has shifted slightly. Today was the first day of U.S. Open qualifying, and I got to take in some great matches.
It was heart-breaking to see Ryler DeHeart lose in three after coming back from a break down in the second. Last year, he made it to the second round in the main draw and lost (in a pretty tight match) to Rafael Nadal, so that's got to be disappointing.
It was great to see Kimiko Date Krumm come back from a lousy first set to dominate the next two. The Japanese veteran, back in the game after a 12-year retirement, is looking good! Not so good for Virginia Ruano Pascual, though, who lost in three. Xavier Malisse fell short, as well. Malisse played Horacio Zeballos in a battle of the weird little pony-tails. Also, Zeballos is 76 in the world, despite not having won the only ATP-level match he's played in his career? That's a bit odd. Yeah, he's won four challengers and made three more finals in the last year, but ... come on, win a tour-level match.
I also got to see young Grigor Dimitrov, who showed flashes of brilliance but wasn't quite allowed to live up to his hype in this match, thanks to the excellent play of German Tobias Kamke. He should have a tougher match-up in the next round of quallies, against Brazilian top seed Tomasz Bellucci, whose match was moved to another court and was over before I realized that fact. He won 6-2, 6-0 against Giancarlo Petrazzuolo. Odd that Dimitrov would be unseeded in the quallies, with all the press he's been getting. But other than his wins against Berdych and Navarro and his tight matches against Nadal and Simon, he hasn't really had any results to speak of this year.
I saw Carsten Ball, as well - good to see him get a win, and hopefully the young Aussie can follow-up on his great run at Los Angeles.
I also saw Stefan Koubek, Somdev Devvarman, and I saw Ekatarina Bychkova have an easy go of it against Coco Vandeweghe. And what was Vaidasova doing in the quallies? And losing! Yikes.
I also saw a couple young collegiate players who were unfortunately outclassed, but still played hard and had some fun styles to watch. I'd really like to see Blake Strode and Ryan Lipman tighten up their games and go pro.
Tomorrow looks like it should be fun, too. I hope everyone else is looking forward to the Open!
It was heart-breaking to see Ryler DeHeart lose in three after coming back from a break down in the second. Last year, he made it to the second round in the main draw and lost (in a pretty tight match) to Rafael Nadal, so that's got to be disappointing.
It was great to see Kimiko Date Krumm come back from a lousy first set to dominate the next two. The Japanese veteran, back in the game after a 12-year retirement, is looking good! Not so good for Virginia Ruano Pascual, though, who lost in three. Xavier Malisse fell short, as well. Malisse played Horacio Zeballos in a battle of the weird little pony-tails. Also, Zeballos is 76 in the world, despite not having won the only ATP-level match he's played in his career? That's a bit odd. Yeah, he's won four challengers and made three more finals in the last year, but ... come on, win a tour-level match.
I also got to see young Grigor Dimitrov, who showed flashes of brilliance but wasn't quite allowed to live up to his hype in this match, thanks to the excellent play of German Tobias Kamke. He should have a tougher match-up in the next round of quallies, against Brazilian top seed Tomasz Bellucci, whose match was moved to another court and was over before I realized that fact. He won 6-2, 6-0 against Giancarlo Petrazzuolo. Odd that Dimitrov would be unseeded in the quallies, with all the press he's been getting. But other than his wins against Berdych and Navarro and his tight matches against Nadal and Simon, he hasn't really had any results to speak of this year.
I saw Carsten Ball, as well - good to see him get a win, and hopefully the young Aussie can follow-up on his great run at Los Angeles.
I also saw Stefan Koubek, Somdev Devvarman, and I saw Ekatarina Bychkova have an easy go of it against Coco Vandeweghe. And what was Vaidasova doing in the quallies? And losing! Yikes.
I also saw a couple young collegiate players who were unfortunately outclassed, but still played hard and had some fun styles to watch. I'd really like to see Blake Strode and Ryan Lipman tighten up their games and go pro.
Tomorrow looks like it should be fun, too. I hope everyone else is looking forward to the Open!
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