Newport Preview

With Wimbledon done, we have one last grass court gasp before the surface fades into memory for the next 11 months: the Hall of Fame Championships in Newport, Rhode Island. Since it's the week after Wimbledon, it doesn't usually draw the greatest players in the game (since they're either resting or readying themselves for the Davis Cup) but it is the first tournament on U.S. soil for several weeks, and always has a handful of middle-tier American players happy to be back in action after what was surely a long and often frustration European clay court tour. I'll take a quick look today at some of the interesting storylines heading into this week.

Sam Querrey is the top seed in this tournament, and he opens against Jesse Levine another young American who doesn't really have Querrey's weaponry. Sam made it to the final here last year, where he lost (surprisingly) to Rajeev Ram. I think he'll do one better this year - he already won at the Queens Club, which had a much, much tougher field to work through. If he wins that, he'll get to play the number one Jamaican player Dustin Brown, who is starting to put his game together and become a solid top-100 player, which I'm excited about.

Unfortunately for another American in the draw, Taylor Dent lost to perennial qualifier Go Soeda from Japan in the first round. Dent wasn't able to put together the kind of grass court season that he was hoping for, and this isn't the best way to end it. It's a benefit for another player in this section, though - young Australian Carsten Ball, who I think should see Querrey in the third round. They played in last year's Los Angeles final, and it was a fine match.

The second quarter of the draw has Olivier Rochus, fresh off his near-upset of Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon, as well as big Australian lefty server (much like Ball) Chris Guccione. The defending champ, Rajeev Ram, is also in this section, but I admit that I'll be shocked if he can repeat his title run from last year. He's good on the grass, but he was a lucky loser here last year - everything broke his way.

Mardy Fish is in the third quarter, as well as Federer's recent near-upset opponent Alejandro Falla. We'll see how Falla can deal with that close call - his first round opponent should have a bit of understanding about it, because it's former Rhode Island finalist and loser of the longest match in tennis history, Nicolas Mahut. I hope he can win this one - he deserves a win after player for so long and coming up empty.

I'm really excited about the last quarter, for one reason - it has young American Ryan Harrison, who upset sixth seed Karol Beck in the first round already. I think that he has a good draw, and could possibly make it to the quarterfinals here. Maybe this will be his coming out tournament; I really think Harrison is the next big name in U.S. tennis, and he should be top-20 bound, at comparable levels to where Isner and Querrey are right now. But he'll have to get there one step at a time, and a deep run into this tournament for the 18-year old would be a fine way to do it.

Week 5, Mid-week Summary

With the first week of post-Australian Open action about halfway done, there have been a few results of note. Nothing too shocking, but a few surprises. Before we get to the analysis, it's worth mentioning that the most important result of Nadal's inability to defend his title at the Australian Open was his ranking dropping from #2 to #4. He hasn't been ranked lower than #2 since July of 2005. He displaced Lleyton Hewitt in that spot.

I don't know if we've heard the last of Nadal's injury. He has a lot of points to defend in the near future. He won Indian Wells, Monte Carlo, and Rome last year, while he made the finals in Madrid. He also won Barcelona and made the Rotterdam final. That's 4,400 of Nadal's 7,600 points, coming up in the next three months before the French Open. Of course, if he can get his title back there, it will help his ranking considerably. But if he's not fighting fit, he could slide a long ways down the rankings in the months to come.

Djokovic moves up to number 2 for the first time in his career, but not because of any stellar performance on his part. He has to be happy to be at his all-time best ranking, but it would have been better if he'd gotten there by winning, rather than by Nadal's form dropping.

Anyway, on to this week's action. In Johannesburg, there are some quite matches coming up. Top-seed Gael Monfils will play his countryman Josselin Ouanna in the second round, and I picked Ouanna as a player on the rise this year. We'll see how well he can do against the number two French player. Ouanna is the #14 Frenchman, which is saying something since he's still ranked 121st in the world.

Dustin Brown, the greatest-ever Jamaican tennis player, finds himself in the quarterfinals with a winnable match against Frenchman Stephane Robert. Brown has a great attitude and a fun style of play. He does what everyone says all those tall players should do - he serves at volleys! He's surprisingly quick to net for a player who is 6'5". You can read more about him here.

The other notable upset at the SA Tennis Open is Indian number one Somdev Devvarman over Xavier Malisse, who has yet to do much with his overturned substance abuse policy ban. He hasn't won an ATP-level match since beating Rik De Voest at Queen's club, last year.

The pending match-ups at Santiago and Zagreb are not quite as interesting, from my perspective. But there's still potential! In Zagreb, Cilic and Koellerer are playing each other in the second round, and if there's anybody ranked outside the top twenty who I wouldn't want to see when I was exhausted after making my first grand slam final, it would probably be Daniel "Crazycakes" Koellerer. Berrer also beat Tipsarevic in the first round, but Tipsy is a very hot-and-cold player, while Berrer just came off a challenger win last week.

In Santiago, it doesn't look like anyone is planning to stand in the way of Gonzalez winning the tournament again. When he retires, they should just name this the "Fernando Gonzalez Open."