New Haven and US Open qualifying wrap-up

First of all, looking back at the week's tournament in New Haven, I have to say ... it's a pretty disappointing week for a tournament that's in danger of losing its title sponsor. The women's tournament was, uncharacteristically, much more interesting than the men's. Only one of the top eight seeds even made the quarterfinals on the men's side, and Baghdatis fell to Sergiy Stakhovsky, who - to his credit - went on to win the tournament.

Stakhovsky is an odd player. He's won two titles this year, but aside from those two title runs, he's never won more than two matches at one tournament. He's lost in his first match at ten tournaments this year. He's definitely hot and cold. The other players who made deep runs at this tournament are all solid pros, but none of them have any recognition in the U.S. I can assure you that the tournament organizers were not hoping for a Stakhovsky-Istomin final, though it was good tennis.

The women's side had more identifiable players in the last rounds - and Caroline Wozniacki ended up taking the title for a third year in a row, just before she heads to New York as the top seed. She played six sets in the final and semis against two tough Russians, and she may run out of steam at the U.S. Open. She does like to play a lot of matches, but combine the stress of her being the top seed with trying to live up to her final run from last year, and that may be enough to cause the great Dane to waver.

The U.S. Open draws are now out, qualifying is complete and those players have been placed in the draw. I'll look at the men's and women's draws tomorrow, but I'll do a quick analysis of how the quallies went, since I find them more interesting than most, I think.

First of all - I am thriled that Jack Sock, the 17-year old American from the Midwest, was given a wildcard into the main draw. But I really think that may have been better spent being given to Nicolas Mahut - the Frenchman fell in the third round of qualifying against a veteran Brazilian player. Honestly, Mahut would have gotten the tournament a lot more attention, even if he had lost his first match, than another American teen. Sock has the potential to be a great player in the future, but he's probably not going to win a round here. This is a dropped ball by the USTA, as far as I'm concerned.

Also, Ryan Harrison is another American teen who has won a handful of ATP-level matches already. He doesn't have a stellar record, but he's 4-9, which isn't too shabby for an 18-year old. But he didn't get a wildcard, either, and he fought his way through three rounds of qualifying. This may not be his time, but Harrison will be an American star in the next four or five years. I could easily see him making top 50, maybe even top 20. He's a dynamic character, too - reports I've read say that his third match was the most exciting of the qualifying tournament. He gave his shirt to a fan at the end of it. Keep an eye on Harrison.

A couple more players to keep eyes on - Lithuanian player Ricardas Berankis, who just turned 20, made it through qualifying as well. He won the U.S. Open juniors in 2007, so he knows the grounds here. The 2006 Junior champ, Dusan Lojda, also made it through qualifying. A couple more young guns who made it through are Japanese player Kei Nishikori and Canadian Milos Raonic, who I've been a fan of ever since I saw him lose a tight match to Fernando Gonzalez at the Canadian masters event a couple years ago.

There are also some more veteran players who came through qualifying, like Croatian Ivan Dodig, Frenchman Marc Gicquel, American Robbie Kendrick, and South African Rik de Voest. These guys could easily put together a good couple of matches here, and the players who come through qualifying have the advantage of having more familiarity with the court conditions than their early-round opponents, and they usually manage to stage an upset or two.

On the women's side, I'll admit that I'm less familiar with more of the players who made it through quallies, but it's good to see Sania Mirza and Michelle Larcher de Brito get through - they're both fun players. Larcher de Brito in particular is a polarizing figure, one of the loudest grunters you'll ever see on the court.

There are some young players who made it through on the women's side, as well. American Irini Falconi, Canadian Rebecca Marino (there actually were a ton of Canadians getting through quallies), and Aussie Sally Peers. All of them were born in 1990. We're getting to the point where the up-and-coming tennis players were born in the 90's, as the results of this year's qualifying tournaments indicates.

Tomorrow - more in-depth looks at the main draws.

New Haven Round of 16 and US Open Quallies

Things are a bit tough in New Haven for the US faithful. Donald Young and Taylor Dent both lost today, after winning the first set. Disappointing for both - and James Blake was unable to finish his match, due to rain. So if he wants to progress, he'll need to beat Dolgopolov and Troicki (in all likelihood, as the Serb is on the verge of victory against Nieminen) in one day. That's a tough ask for a player on the comeback trail.

And two of the three American players on the women's side - Melanie Oudin and Varvara Lepchenko - lost in the first round, as well. Only Bethanie Mattek-Sands won her first match, so she's the last American standing on the women's side. And she gets Nadia Petrova next round. Oof.

It's worth noting that the women's draw is much stronger than the men's, despite their tournament being smaller. Four of the top ten players are here - or at least, they were. World number seven Francesca Schiavone is already out, losing in the first round to ... Dinara Safina? Can that be right? Maybe Safina is going to come back; I really hope to see her do well again, because she is a great player to watch when she's not breaking down. I'm surprised to see Wozniacki playing here, since she just won the tournament in Canada last week and has a lot of points to defend from her finals showing at last year's U.S. Open.

Speaking of the U.S. Open, qualifying is just underway, and I'm starting to get excited. I'll give you some of the highlights I can see from the qualifying draw as it's laid out, so far:

Unfortunately for the Japanese fans, two of the four Japanese players in the draw play each other in the first round, Go Soeda and Yuichi Sugita. Tatsumi Ito has already won his first round, but the Japanese player with the most upside (despite being the number two player from his country) is yet to play. Kei Nishikori, who made the fourth round of the Open in 2008, opens against Chilean Paul Capdeville. While Nishikori hasn't had a great year at the top level, he's won three challenger tournament. I'm looking forward to seeing back in the top 100.

The only players I know who have already lost are thirteenth seed from Austria Martin Fischer, and Australian Chris Guccione. Fischer lost to Swiss vet Martin Lammer, while the Gooch lost to Bobby Reynolds. Ivo Minar also lost to Frank Dancevic, but we're early on. A bunch of the other recognizable players are going to be gone before this thing ends.

On that subject, though, there aren't that many former big name guys toiling their way through the quallies, this year. Usually, there's a couple top-30 players whose ages are just about topping 30 as well, who are trying to get their rankings back into more respectable territory. I'm not seeing too many - if any - of those guys, this year. Stefan Koubek may be the only one I can spot.

I do see a bunch of young guns, though. Some teenagers and a bunch of guys in the 20-22 year old range. It's been a while since we've seen a real breakthrough from one of the younger guys on tour, so it's always good to keep an eye out for it on this stage. In addition to Nishikori, watch for Ryan Harrison, Ricardas Berankis, Milos Raonic, Bernard Tomic, Filip Krajinovic, Chase Buchanan, Jerzy Janowicz, and Brydan Klein. None of them over 20 - and that's not counting the wildcards, which all went to US teens (except one, see below), but I'm not expecting too much from those guys. We'll see if a couple of the guys I listed above can make some noise. It's always good to see new faces in the mix - I'm surprised not to see Gianni Mina in the qualifying, but maybe he's playing the juniors tournament again this year.

The other wildcard went to American Blake Strode, who played through the US Open wildcard tournament, just to get this wildcard, where he has to win another three rounds before he even gets into the main draw. Ouch. He doesn't have the best draw, either - it starts off okay, but to get into the Open, he's going to have to beat either top seed Marcel Ilhan (the best Turkish tennis player ever) or Australian hope Bernard Tomic. Tennis is not a forgiving sport by any means. Best of luck to Blake, though.

I'm hoping to see Josselin Ouanna make it through. The tournament definitely needs him, as Tsonga has (I think) withdrawn due to knee problems. Ouanna may not be the genuine article, but he's the next best thing, and he had a good run here last year. He's another player I want to see do well on a more consistent basis. He's lots of fun to watch, when he's on.

I'll admit, I'm disappointed to see Nicolas Mahut in the qualifying draw. The USTA really should have given him a wildcard directly into the tournament, after his accomplishment over the summer. There's no doubt that he did a lot more for tennis's popularity by playing that match than anyone who actually received a wildcard this year. On the plus side, he won't have to play any more marathon matches, thanks to the fifth (or third, in qualifying) set tiebreaker at this major.

My last note is about the American player and frequent tweeter Amer Delic, who is making his return to pro tennis in the USO quallies after a layoff of more than a year. I've been looking forward to seeing him back on the tennis court for a long time, so I hope he has a good run this year. It's got to be tough to come back after so long away, but he has the right attitude. I'm wishing him luck, too.

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.

The scourge of the tennis fan...

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.