Cincinnati Wrap-up and New Haven Preview

Well, the Cincinnati semifinals through the finals were a bit odd, to say the least. The first semifinal on Saturday, between the American duo of Roddick and Fish, was interrupted by rain, and had quite a few sudden changes of momentum. It was tight until 4-5 in the first set, when a rain delay came and stopped play. Once it resumed, Fish's level had dropped significantly. He was broken to lose the set, and then Roddick went up 5-2 in the second. It was at this point that another rain delay came, but this time, once play resumed, it was Roddick who wasn't the same. He was broken while serving for the match and then couldn't find the court in the tiebreak. Fish ran away with the third set.

The second semi wasn't as exciting, as Federer beat Marcos Baghdatis without much difficulty. In the final, the match was tight, no doubt - with only a single break of serve in three sets. Fish won the first set in a tiebreak, but Federer won the second set tiebreak easily. Then he broke to go up 5-4 in the final set, after which he smoothly served it out. The outcome was basically never in doubt, as far as I was concerned. Fish played great tennis, but Federer had such an easy run to the final (while Fish's road was really tough) it would have been almost impossible for Mardy to pull off the upset.

A good title defense for Federer, but on the other hand, if he couldn't win this title, then the alarm bells would have really been sounding. The only top ten player he had to face was Nikolay Davydenko, who he has a dominant record over and who has been on a recent injury layoff. He couldn't have asked for much smoother passage, honestly. I'm sure he'll build some confidence from the win, but one shouldn't really put too much stock in this win, considering the type of opposition he had to fight through. All in all, it was a very strange tournament - pretty good play from most of the people involved, and everybody who made the quarters or so should feel encouraged heading into the U.S. Open.

For those who didn't get as much out of the U.S. Open summer series as they could have hoped, the last stop on the tour is in New Haven, where the field is looking very depleted this year. Although there are now (thanks to Fish's run to the final) four American players in the ATP top 25, none of them are playing in Connecticut. That means that all three of the U.S. players in the draw required wildcards to get there.

Fortunately, Blake, Dent, and Young have all won their opening matches, so there's still a chance that an American could make a deep run. They all get seeds in the next round, though, so it gets tougher from here. Marcos Baghdatis is the top seed in New Haven, and at number 20 in the world, it's not indicative of the best field at the Yale Tennis Center, and he opens against the tough Russian Igor Andreev tomorrow. The best second round matches taking place tomorrow include Fernando Gonzalez against Radek Stepanek, both of whom are coming back from injury layoffs, so they're both going to be shaking off rust. Should be a fun match, nonetheless. Also, keep an eye on Jarkko Nieminen against Viktor Troicki.

It'll be interesting to see who comes through this unusual field, since it doesn't have all the usual suspects that it's had in years past. Here's hoping that Blake can find his form and have a good run - he dominated in his opening round match, beating Pere Riba while only dropping one game. Here's hoping he can keep it together agaisnt Dolgopolov in the second round, not only for his sake, but so the tennis fans will at least have one familiar face to root for. The tournament may be in sponsor trouble already, and losing all the Americans before the quarters would not help their financial situation.