Howdy, Things will be busy around here over the next few days – we have Bobby Chintapalli's Queen City Notebook (The next post down is the first installment) for starters, and we'll probably have some similar intel coming from from Toronto in a couple of days, courtesy of your social director, Jackie Roe. I'll be continuing the News of the Day posts here through the rest of the week. Tomorrow I'm going to visit with a tennis nut who also happens to be one of the most controversial figures on the American political landscape, but I'm not telling who. You'll have to come back to find out.
I will be out of the office all of next week (Aug. 16th to 23rd), and will not be posting for the first half of that period (we'll be camping in the Adirondacks, far from cell and Internet service). But things will continue to chug along here. I plan to be out at the U.S. Open qualifying right after that, providing live coverage. Qualifying always kicks up some interesting stories. It costs nothing to attend, yet it's never crowded. Some of the concessions will already be open. It's not just a great deal, it's a load of fun and just a great place for aficionados like yourselves. Hope to see some of you out there.
Now, for the news of the day:
I feel like we ought to play Beethoven's Eroica or something, because Andy Roddick has dropped from no. 9 to no. 11 on the ATP computer, which would be no big deal but for the fact that this week will be the first since the ATP computer rankings were fired up in 1973 that the U.S. will not have a single representative in the top 10. Roddick was the last U.S. male to win a major, the U.S. Open of 2003. That makes 27 majors now since a norteamericano has won one.
Incidentally, that first official ATP computer ranked top 10 featured three American men: Stan Smith (no. 3), Arthur Ashe (no. 4), and rapidly emerging Jimmy Connors (no. 10). Three Australians, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and John Newcombe, were ranked 5, 6 and 7 respectively, and – was it a portent? – Spain's Manuel Orantes was ranked no. 2, right behind top dog Ilie Nastase of Romania.
It's a sad day for the U.S. men's game, But there's always the women. . .
Did you know that with just three more weeks at no. 1, Serena Williams will move into sixth place on the list of players who held the top ranking for the greatest number of weeks? Justine Henin still has two more weeks at no. 1 (117 weeks), but it will take a long slog to knock Monica Seles (178 weeks) out of the no. 5 position. Steffi Graf leads the parade, with 377 weeks spent at no. 1. That's more than three times the number of weeks Serena has logged. I'd say not-always-so-Serene-ah has a lot of work to do.
Caroline Wozniacki gets a lot of credit for coming through in the unfortunately named e-boks Sony Ericsson Open (Copenhagen). And no complaints from the tournament promoter about this seeming slight, please. I published the name, right?. There's always pressure to win at home, especially in a new event, and even moreso when the tournament clearly seems to have been spawned to capitalize on the emergence of a native star (you can ask Novak Djokovic or even the Belgian superstars about that). Let's face it, this was not just Wozniacki's tournament to win (a debatable concept, given her recent history), it was also hers to. . . carry.
That can be an even more daunting mission for a class of athlete that is by definition mercenary, with each individual given to freely looting the coffers of any given tournament solely for her private, piratical benefit.
Wozniacki was the top seed in Copenhagen, and she started off on shaky ground, dropping the first set in her first-round match against Petra Martic. Wozniacki won in three, but the first-round jitters weren't easily quelled. Wozniacki had to go to a third-set tiebreaker to win her second-rounder against Julia Goerges (isn't she some kind of chef or something), and 6-4 in the third against qualifier Anna Chakvatedze. Accustomed to living at the edge, she had her least stressful match in the final, winning in straight sets over Klara Zakopalova.
Sure, there was a lot of fat in the draw. But it sizzled in the pan before it got fried and this result could help Wozniacki in the coming weeks. She has to feel pretty good about her ability to deal with pressure and to claw and think her way through matches after producing the result everyone in Denmark hoped to see. The only thing that might have furthered the narrative is Wozniacki having a name that sounds a little more. . . Danish. But hail, you can't have everything. It was a good effort.
On the men's side, the summer just got a little weirder, now that David Nalbandian has emerged as a contender during the hard-court season. I wrote about Nalbandian for ESPN today, so you might want to check that out. In the course of poring over the archives, I realized how close Nalbandian has come to playing for a Grand Slam title on numerous occasions since that astonishing sprint to the Wimbledon final in just the fourth major event of his career (it was in 2002).
Any guy who can make a Wimbledon final so quickly (he was 20 at the time) and then find a way to take up residence in the Top 10 yet never make another major final has got to have issues. The relevant question now is whether or not those issues can be overcome, or is there just too much bad karma in play?
Whatever the case, you ignore Nalbandian at your peril. He's been off the tour for most of the year with injury, but his win at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic provided the ultimate crash course in match toughness. We know he's fresh and fit, or as fit as this Good Time Charlie is likely to get. Nalbandian's fortunes typically ebb and flow, and it's hard not to see this as a flow period. If I were a U.S. Open contender named, say, Andy, I'd be afraid. Very afraid.
Coincidentally, this past week also saw a resurgence of a WTA player who could be mistaken for Nalbandian's sister, whose skills on the backhand side are comparable, and who is undoubtedly his soul-mate as a player – Svetlana Kuznetsova.
She had a corker of a match with Agnieszka Radwanska in the Mercury Insurance Open final (San Diego). Here's something odd to mull over. The last time either of these women played a final it was against each other, in Beijing last year (Sveta won that one, too). What are the chances? Multiple Grand Slam titlist Kuznetsova had fallen out of the top 20 earlier this year, which is a little hard to believe, given that she's one of those players (on either tour) who has seemed perfectly content to muck around in the top 10, enjoying life, going on a little run now and then to keep up the cash flow and the box-office value of her name.
With this win, Kuznetsova. just jumped form no. 21 to no. 14. Kuznetsova has already won the U.S. Open, but somehow I just don't think she'll be thinking, Been there, done that. . . On the other hand, as we're talking about Svetlana "This is How I Roll" Kuznetsova, so who can say?
Matt van Tuinen sent out a press release earlier today, announcing that James Blake has been given a wild card into the New Haven event. You may remember that in 2005, Blake was an unseeded wild card in New Haven, but he blasted his way through and won the title. That's just the kind of renewal Blake needs this summer, and the good news is that he's dealt with his foot and knee injuries and ought to be in the full bloom of health for the hard-court season.
– Pete