It's Showtime

by Savannah

2011 US Open Men's Singles Draw

Novak Djokovic SRB (1) v Q CONOR NILAND
Pere Riba ESP v Carlos Berlocq ARG
Potito Starace ITA v Michael Berrer GER
Nikolay Davydenko RUS v Ivan Dodig CRO (32)

Alexandr Dolgopolov UKR (22) v Frederico Gil POR
Kei Nishikori JPN v Flavio Cipolla ITA
Ivo Karlovic CRO v Fernando Gonzalez CHI
Sergiy Stakhovsky UKR v Richard Gasquet FRA (13)

Tomas Berdych CZE (9) v Q ROMAIN JOUAN
Fabio Fognini ITA v Horacio Zeballos ARG
Philipp Petzschner GER v Albert Ramos ESP
Q AUGUSTIN GENSSE v Janko Tipsarevic SRB (20)

Marcel Granollers ESP (31) v Xavier Malisse BEL
Mikhail Kukushkin KAZ v Albert Montanes ESP
Pablo Andujar ESP v Juan Carlos Ferrero ESP
Grigor Dimitrov BUL v Gael Monfils FRA (7)


Roger Federer SUI (3) v Santiago Giraldo COL
Dudi Sela ISR v Thomaz Bellucci BRA
Q MICHAEL YANI v Bernard Tomic AUS
Ryan Harrison USA v Marin Cilic CRO (27)

Radek Stepanek CZE (23) v Philipp Kohlschreiber GER
Juan Monaco ARG v Andreas Seppi ITA
Tommy Haas GER v Q Jonathan Dasnieres De Veigy
Alejandro Falla COL v Viktor Troicki SRB (15)

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga FRA (11) v Yen-Hsun Lu TPE
Andreas Haider-Maurer AUT v Q SERGEI BUBKA
Q MARSEL ILHAN v Q FRANK DANCEVIC
Jarkko Nieminen FIN v Fernando Verdasco ESP (19)

Michael Llodra FRA (29) v Victor Hanescu ROU
Kevin Anderson RSA v Q GO SOEDA
Q MALEK JAZIRI v Thiemo de Bakker NED
Tobias Kamke GER v Mardy Fish USA (8)


Robin Soderling SWE (6) v Q LOUK SORENSEN
Alex Bogomolov Jr. USA v Steve Johnson USA
Robby Ginepri USA v Q JOAO SOUZA
Marcos Baghdatis CYP v John Isner USA (28)

Juan Martin Del Potro ARG (18) v Filippo Volandri ITA
Diego Junqueira ARG v Karol Beck SVK
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez ESP v Daniel Gimeno-Traver ESP
Ricardo Mello BRA v Gilles Simon FRA (12)

Stanislas Wawrinka SUI (14) v Maximo Gonzalez ARG
Donald Young USA vLL LUKAS LACKO
Dmitry Tursunov RUS v Steve Darcis BEL
Marinko Matosevic AUS v Juan Ignacio Chela ARG (24)

Feliciano Lopez ESP (25) v Tatsuma Ito JPN
Q VASEK POSPISIL v Lukas Rosol CZE
Rui Machado POR v Robin Haase NED
Somdev Devvarman IND v Andy Murray GBR (4)


David Ferrer ESP (5) v Igor Andreev RUS
James Blake USA v Q JESSE HUTA GALUNG
Olivier Rochus BEL v Q JEAN RENE LISNARD
Adrian Mannarino FRA v Florian Mayer GER (26)

Andy Roddick USA (21) v Michael Russell USA
Jack Sock USA v Marc Gicquel FRA
Denis Istomin UZB v Ryan Sweeting USA
Julien Benneteau FRA v Nicolas Almagro ESP (10)

Mikhail Youzhny RUS (16) v Ernests Gulbis LAT
Edouard Roger-Vasselin FRA v Gilles Muller LUX
Matthias Bachinger GER v Igor Kunitsyn RUS
Eric Prodon FRA v Jurgen Melzer AUT (17)

Ivan Ljubicic CRO (30) v Blaz Kavcic SLO
Bobby Reynolds USA v David Nalbandian ARG
Nicolas Mahut FRA v Q ROBERT FARAH
Andrey Golubev KAZ v Rafael Nadal ESP (2)

2011 US Open Women's Singles Main Draw

Caroline Wozniacki DEN (1) v Nuria Llagostera Vives ESP
Arantxa Rus NED v Elena Vesnina RUS
Vania King USA v Greta Arn HUN
Iveta Benesova CZE v Jarmila Gajdosova AUS (29)

Daniela Hantuchova SVK (21) v Pauline Parmentier FRA
Akgul Amanmuradova UZB v Tamira Paszek AUT
Jamie Hampton USA v Elena Baltacha GBR
Sara Errani ITA v Svetlana Kuznetsova RUS (15)

Andrea Petkovic GER (10) v (Q) Ekaterina Bychkova RUS
(Q) Vitalia Diatchenko RUS v Jie Zheng CHN
Casey Dellacqua AUS v Alize Cornet FRA
Irina-Camelia Begu ROU v Roberta Vinci ITA (18)

Kaia Kanepi EST (31) v Tamarine Tanasugarn THA
Kimiko Date-Krumm JPN v (Q) Silvia Soler-Espinosa ESP
Mathilde Johansson FRA v Carla Suarez Navarro ESP
Simona Halep ROU v Na Li CHN (6)


Victoria Azarenka BLR (4) v Johanna Larsson SWE
Rebecca Marino CAN v Gisela Dulko ARG
(Q) Michaella Krajicek NED v Eleni Daniilidou GRE
Bojana Jovanovski SRB v Serena Williams USA (28)

Shahar Peer ISR (23) v Sania Mirza IND
(Q) Reka-Luka Jani HUN v Sloane Stephens USA
Evgeniya Rodina RUS v Petra Cetkovska CZE
Ksenia Pervak RUS v Ana Ivanovic SRB (16)

Jelena Jankovic SRB (11) v Alison Riske USA
Jelena Dokic AUS v Olga Govortsova BLR
Petra Martic CRO v Barbora Zahlavova Strycova CZE
Anna Tatishvili GEO v Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova RUS (17)

Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez ESP (32) v Mona Barthel GER
Chanelle Scheepers RSA v Anne Keothavong GBR
Mirjana Lucic CRO v (Q) Marina Erakovic NZL
(Q) Galina Voskoboeva KAZ v Francesca Schiavone ITA (7)

Petra Kvitova CZE (5) v Alexandra Dulgheru ROU
Patricia Mayr-Achleitner AUT v Monica Niculescu ROU
Jill Craybas USA v Madison Keys USA
Magdalena Rybarikova SVK v Lucie Safarova CZE (27)

Yanina Wickmayer BEL (20) v Sorana Cirstea ROU
Alla Kudryavtseva RUS v Anastasia Rodionova AUS
Lauren Davis USA v Angelique Kerber GER
(Q) Urszula Radwandska POL v Agnieszka Radwanska POL (12)

Shuai Peng CHN (13) v Varvara Lepchenko USA
Virginie Razzano FRA v Tsvetana Pironkova BUL
Misaki Doi JPN v Laura Pous-Tio ESP
Kristina Barrois GER v Julia Goerges GER (19)

Flavia Pennetta ITA (26) v Aravane Rezai FRA
Melanie Oudin USA v (Q) Romina Oprandi ITA
Anastasiya Yakimova BLR v (Q) Noppawan Lertcheewakarn THA
Heather Watson GBR v Maria Sharapova RUS (3)


Marion Bartoli FRA (8) v (Q) Alexandra Panova RUS
Christina McHale USA v (Q) Aleksandra Wozniak CAN
Vera Dushevina RUS v Anastasija Sevastova LAT
Ekaterina Makarova RUS v Maria Kirilenko RUS (25)

Nadia Petrova RUS (24) v (Q) Yung-Jan Chan TPE
Bethanie Mattek-Sands USA v Polona Hercog SLO
Coco Vandeweghe USA v Alberta Brianti ITA
Sofia Arvidsson SWE v Samantha Stosur AUS (9)

Dominika Cibulkova SVK (14) v Shuai Zhang CHN
Klara Zakopalova CZE v Irina Falconi USA
Vesna Dolonts RUS v Venus Williams USA
Alona Bondarenko UKR v Sabine Lisicki GER (22)

Anabel Medina Garrigues ESP (30) v (Q) Karin Knapp ITA
(Q) Laura Robson GBR v Ayumi Morita JPN
Lucie Hradecka CZE v Kateryna Bondarenko UKR
(Q) Stephanie Foretz Gacon FRA v Vera Zvonareva RUS (2)

I was debating whether to do a write up on the draws this year. I always end up writing the same things and frankly it's boring. I mean how many times can you write that Maria Sharapova is being kept away from anyone who on paper should be able to disrupt her march to the "business end" of the tournament to steal a phrase. This year they've outdone themselves.

Shuai Peng CHN (13) v Varvara Lepchenko USA
Virginie Razzano FRA v Tsvetana Pironkova BUL
Misaki Doi JPN v Laura Pous-Tio ESP
Kristina Barrois GER v Julia Goerges GER (19)

Flavia Pennetta ITA (26) v Aravane Rezai FRA
Melanie Oudin USA v (Q) Romina Oprandi ITA
Anastasiya Yakimova BLR v (Q) Noppawan Lertcheewakarn THA
Heather Watson GBR v Maria Sharapova RUS (3)

Heather Watson is a promising British junior. So is Noppawan Lertcheewakarn. Yakimova has been kicking around the ITF circuit. Aravane and Flavia have not had good years. Oprandi just fought her way through qualifying. I'm leaving Melanie alone.

Peng Shuai has a nagging hip injury. Lepchenko is, you got it, a junior. Goerges has not done well on hardcourts this year. Misaki Doi has played well this summer but she's going to have to do really well to do any damage. Barrois and Pous-Tio shouldn't be able to do any damage either. Razzano is grieving. As for Tsvetana Pironkova will she get out of her section and threaten Sharapova? She can if she wants to but unless you put Venus Williams in front of her she can't be bothered.

Sharapova is also in the bottom half of the draw far, far away from someone named Serena Williams. Don't kid yourself. All that screaming and yelling about seeding Serena #8 was to try and make sure that she didn't face Sharapova early. Apparently Victoria Azarenka drew the short straw and is seeded to face Serena. Wonder who she pissed off?

The worriers could've saved themselves some drama. Why ask the USTA to break with tradition and seed Serena so high when they have their own way of doing things that they've gotten away with for a long time. If Kim Clijsters had played she'd have been the recipient of an even kinder section than Sharapova.

Anyway draws are hypothetical portrayals of what will happen once the tournament is underway. It's always nice to have the original draw as a reference once the second week is underway.

Who are the favorites? The pundits say Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. What do I say? I find it amusing that the top two seeds are on no one's list of finalists.

Miscellany

Mention weird egg shaped devices and most of us who keep up with popular culture will think of Lady Gaga's entrance into an award show writhing around inside of an egg shaped something or another.

I'd like you to turn your attention to the thingy featured in this Wall Street Journal article and how it relates to men's tennis. Some highlights from the article.

Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic hasn't earned his No. 1 ranking by taking the conventional road. There's his odd ritual of excessive ball bouncing before serves, which can break an opponent's concentration. There's his new gluten-free diet, which he's said has helped him feel stronger on the court.

But now there's something truly weird: the CVAC Pod.

Ever since last year's U.S. Open, Djokovic has been trying to improve his fitness by climbing into a rare $75,000 egg-shaped, bobsled-sized pressure chamber.

The machine, which is made by a California-based company called CVAC Systems and hasn't been banned by any sports governing bodies, is one of only 20 in the world. Unlike the increasingly trendy $5,000 hyperbaric chambers many professional athletes use to saturate the blood with oxygen and stimulate healing, the CVAC is a considerably more-ambitious contraption. It uses a computer-controlled valve and a vacuum pump to simulate high altitude and compress the muscles at rhythmic intervals.
(...)
Djokovic has never mentioned the pod publicly before. He acknowledged using it for the first time last week during a sponsor event in New York after he was asked about it for this article.
(...)
While pod users don't do much beyond sitting while they are inside (cellphone use is permitted), CVAC Systems chief executive Allen Ruszkowski says the treatment seems to have many of the same effects on the body as intense exercise. He claims that the technology may be twice as effective at helping the body absorb oxygen as blood doping—a banned form of performance enhancement.

I assume a certain level of reading comprehension from my readers so I'm going to leave you to draw your own conclusions about this device. I also want to single out this section including a quote from Patrick McEnroe.

In 2006 the World Anti-Doping Agency ruled that such oxygen tents enhance performance and violate "the spirit of sport," but did not add them to the list of banned substances and methods, saying they would wait until further studies were conducted.

Patrick McEnroe, the USTA's general manager of player development, says he's skeptical that any such contraption could have much impact on tennis performance. "I don't really take this stuff particularly seriously," says McEnroe, noting that Djokovic has not only improved his fitness this year but has also fixed key problems in his game, revamping his serve and developing a newly devastating forehand. "Maybe there are a few things that have helped (Djokovic) mentally, but let's remember that before he tried his gluten-free diet or went into a hyperbaric chamber he had already won a Grand Slam and beat Roger Federer."

Lou Lamoriello, the general manager of the NHL's New Jersey Devils, says he attended a presentation last year with his coaching staff in which Uehling cited Djokovic's defeat of Roger Federer in the 2010 U.S. Open semifinal as evidence of the CVAC unit's effectiveness.

End Notes

I made it out to the Qualifying Tournament for the first time ever. If you live in the New York City area and can get a few days off it's worth your while to make it out to the BJK National Tennis Center and take advantage of the free admission to see some of the up and coming players as well as the stars who can be seen wandering the grounds without phalanxes of security. Of course the first day I was there an earthquake hit the NYC area. I was almost thrown from the bench I was sitting on while watching Galina Voskoboeva play. She doesn't look so much like Pironkova in person but she is someone to keep your eye on. She was playing a young woman from Bolivia Maria Fernanda Alvarez Teran, who can hit the snot out of the ball and move but needs to work on her fitness. She had a good run at a tournament earlier this year but when there's more jiggle in your thighs than mine it's time to get to work.

I left earthquake day for fear of aftershocks but went back out on Friday. Unfortunately the humidity generated by the approaching storm did me in and I couldn't stay too long.

Still it was fun and did I mention the word "FREE"? Ironically when I was there I didn't get to see who I wanted on the practice courts. I got to see Stan Wawrinka and Alex Bogomolov Jr. as well as Viktor Troicki. Troicki is much bigger than he appears on television. The guy next to me kept telling people it was Janko Tipsarevic although there wasn't a tattoo in sight. I almost got to see Roger Federer but the crush of people with little kids running into your legs was too much for me.

The State of the WTA

Most "state of" analyses of tennis take place after a major. I'm doing mine before the start of the United States Open on August 29th because there have been tectonic shifts in the conversation around women's tennis and most of it has to do with the woman pictured above.

The WTA top ten is as follows.

1 Wozniacki, Caroline 11/07/90 DEN 9915 22
2 Zvonareva, Vera 07/09/84 RUS 7045 21
3 Clijsters, Kim 08/06/83 BEL 6726 15
4 Azarenka, Victoria 31/07/89 BLR 6390 21
5 Li, Na 26/02/82 CHN 5671 18
6 Kvitova, Petra 08/03/90 CZE 5561 21
7 Sharapova, Maria 19/04/87 RUS 5446 14
8 Schiavone, Francesca 23/06/80 ITA 4955 21
9 Bartoli, Marion 02/10/84 FRA 4325 26
10 Stosur, Samantha 30/03/84 AUS 3775 21

Lets take a brief look at the top female tennis players starting with Samantha Stosur.

I have to be frank. I've never understood all the hoopla about Samantha. Yes she's made the transition from a doubles player to a competent singles player but I'm at a loss for all the adulation and rapturous cyberink spent on touting her as the second coming. I wonder if she was from any country other than Australia the Grand Poobahs would be so busy pumping her status up as the next big thing. Tennisheads all know that Stosur is the best Australian player right now and someone in the axis has to have a Big Star. It's obvious that the best of Britain so far is faltering and France, well, the less said the better.

Australia is so desperate to have a star that all of the drama between Bernard Tomic and his family is being swept under the rug and there is a lot chatter about Tomic's new found maturity and dedication to the game. Kind of the same thing that's being done regarding United States player Ryan Harrison.

But this is a WTA post. To my knowledge Stosur has never thrown a racquet, verbally assaulted a chair umpire or engaged in any conduct detrimental to tennis. It's clear that the hype is putting pressure on her and the hype machine needs to back off. I think if they did she could relax and play her game without worrying about the critiques that will come afterward. She could move up a couple of places if that would happen.

Marion Bartoli

I'm surprised that Marion has never really capitalized on her talent. Of course this could have to do with her almost constant brawling with the French Federation and her unorthodox style and her fathers unorthodox approach to fitness and play. When Marion's game is on it's on. She's slimmed down a great deal and can move much better than she used to.

I have to question the necessity of all the jumping up and down and gesticulating between points. The last match I saw Marion play she visibly flagged after playing a tough set. When the between point stuff stopped so did her game. I think she's ranked right about where she should be this year. the tennis press tends to ignore Maid Marion and allows her to fly under the radar. All of that works to her advantage.

Francesca Schiavone

The question is what the hell is this old broad doing in the WTA top ten at this stage of her career? The answer is she's there because she knows how to play tennis. Not slap the ball around, screaming and grunting all the time although she does make a bit of noise, but how to think and strategize on the fly, something that is an asset and very rare among the younger generation. She's not going to win all the time but you'll know you've been in a match after playing her. She doesn't let go of your throat easily as her coach knows.

It's the intangibles she brings that make her one of the women who can go deep at the US Open.

Maria Sharapova

Maria is still one of the most polarizing figures in tennis. Despite the kinder, gentler, giggly about her fiancé Maria the Siberian Ban Sidhe is still in residence and as determined as ever to regain her spot at the top of the game.

When pressured Maria can still make double faults and while her movement has improved no one would call her a gazelle on the courts. Pressure also causes brain freeze with her and she isn't the confident figure she makes herself out to be when that happens. She's added a beautifully disguised drop shot to her repertoire and this can help her with her movement issues since she'll catch her opponents off guard.

The draw is all important to Maria's chances of making the second week in New York. She's been given cupcake draws and well hidden within the draw in the past but this year I think the USTA is going to have to produce a more competitive draw for all seeded players, top to bottom. Can she make the semi's? If things align in her favor there's no reason why she can't. Is she a top ten player? Are any of them?

Petra Kvitova

I believe Petra really suffers from asthma. This will hinder her during the US summer hard court swing and prevent her from playing at her best. Her two performances this summer in the States have been disappointing. That she's now perceived as a threat by her peers is putting it mildly. I think we'll see her treated as such by the makers of random draws and especially those in New York.

Kvitova is experiencing the pressure a top tier player has to face and I don't think it'll make dealing with her asthma easier. When she is relaxed she's a joy to watch if you like Big Babe tennis. As a Big Babe she doesn't move well either and that can be a liability for her going forward unless she develops a shot that will keep her opponents off balance and allow her to get in position for a good return. Can she win the big one? She won Wimbledon. It felt weird writing that.

Li Na

It's amazing how this personality has been muted by the WTA press machine. It wasn't until this years Australian Open that the world at large got to know Li Na. There are a thousand reasons why, all negative, so I won't go into them here. Suffice it to say Li is another old broad who knows how to play tennis. The American comms like to make a big deal about endorsements and how she's surpassed Sharapova in the monetary value of her deals but they talk very little about how she managed to win a Grand Slam title this year. It could be said that she almost won two and would have if nerves and the newness of being in a Slam final hadn't gotten to her in Melbourne.
I thought that she was fueled by anger in Melbourne but that it had dissipated somewhat when she got to Paris. It's interesting how her former coach Thomas Hogstedt is being touted as a near genius by the American tennis establishment and not a word is spoken about his association with Li Na. I'm just saying.

If Li can control her emotions and play the mental game of tennis like she did in Australia and France she will continue to be a force to be reckoned with in women's tennis. Like Kvitova she's got a target on her back and is no longer considered fodder in a draw. Still she's a Grand Slam Champion and somehow I think she has it in mind to be more than a one time champion.

Victoria Azarenka

No one with the amount of junk food Azarenka carries in her tennis bag can stay mentally or physically focused over a long period of time. If you think I'm kidding about her junk food watch her Bag Check on Tennis Channel. I'm not sure if the Bag Checks are on YoutTube or not but Tennis Channel posts them on their website.

I'm not a revisionist when it comes to bad behavior on court. I'm tired of Andy Roddick's petulance on court as well as his apologies afterwards. This is learned behavior and he's probably been getting away with it since he was two. Azarenka has been advised to cut the shit and she hasn't gone after a chair umpire or had a complete breakdown on court in a long while now but I still think that in the end she doesn't have the temperament to win a major. Not that she doesn't want to but her knowledge of the game is severely lacking and like many of her generation of players she's incapable of thinking and constructing points while playing. She can overpower lesser opponents but when she starts playing more experienced players she shows up mentally fragile.

I'm always stunned at her ranking. I remain so.

Kim Clijsters

I have to admit I was surprised that Kim withdrew from the US Open. I thought she was doing her usual and trying to come into New York as the most rested player. She's done this the last couple of years and with the help of a soft draw has been able to go deep.

Kim is not only out of the Open. She announced earlier this year that she was not going to Japan, something the tennis press seems to have missed hearing since they're acting as if this is the first she's said she would miss at least some of the Asian swing. She's also announced that 2012 will be her last year playing competitively.

I'm not a fan of her style of play but that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve her ranking. Like everyone else she is ranked where she is mostly because of where she's played and how deep she's been able to get when she plays. I don't think her style will leave a lasting impression on the game.

Vera Zvonareva

Last night, for one glorious set, Vera Zvonareva showed why she is ranked number two in the WTA. There was pinpoint accuracy in her shot making and she moved with ease around the court frustrating her fellow Russian Maria Sharapova. The ESPN commentators swooned when Thomas Hogstedt told his player that Bepa wouldn't play like that for long and Bepa set out to prove him right. It was as if Vera forgot what to do on court, forgot what she'd done the first set and that gave Sharapova the opening she needed. In no time Sharapova won the next two sets and the match.

Is it any wonder people ask how Vera is ranked #2 in the world? She didn't ask for her coach, to her credit, but she totally lost the plot. The way she played last night it's a wonder she's in the top ten let alone the top three.

Then again Sharapova does not like losing to Russians and she will fight tooth and nail to make sure she beats them. Is it because the Russian's are all headcases unable to fight their way through a match? I don't know. I do know that Vera can and has played better than she did last night. Her mental collapses in big matches are becoming legendary and overshadow her wins.

Caroline Wozniacki


Where do I start? She has played the most matches, defeated many lower ranked players, and the CEO of the WTA calls her "Sunshine".
She is friends with all the top players including the Williams women, and hasn't met a photo op she doesn't like. The male dominated ranks of tennis journalists love her to death (it's not quite Ana Ivanovic worship but it's close) and she has a fan base that simply adores her.

So why is it when you mention her name you get side eyes, rolling eyes, hands thrown in the air, sucked teeth and facepalms? As I said she does have her fans but they sometimes get drowned out in the screaming.

She's a "pusher". Not of drugs but in her style of play. Offense seems to be, well, offensive to her and it drives many people up the wall including her opponents who often end up at a loss to explain how she beat them. It doesn't help that the commentators and the WTA think she walks on water. It's never good when your professional association gives you a nick name and makes it clear that you're the favorite, the new face of the sport. They did this to Sharapova too if you recall. Many fans still can't stand her because of the overt favoritism that came her way.

Be that as it may there's new drama around her regarding her coaching situation. Apparently her father, Victor or Piotr, whichever you prefer, is not coaching her anymore. People have been quick to say that Caroline wants to take her tennis in a new direction and that Victor/Piotr has agreed he's not the man to take her there. There's also a lot of blather about her and a pro golfer.

Personally I wonder if Victor/Piotr has stepped down for other reasons. The tennis press in the United States has not had much to say about Mr Wozniacki's name change and I have never heard them even mention it. The Danish press strongly hinted that there are reasons the man legally known as Victor Krason might want to use the name he was given at birth when working with his daughter. The only American to cover this was Christopher Clarey of the New York Times.

As you all know I can find a conspiracy in opening a newspaper so maybe I'm just being overly suspicious. It doesn't help that the Krason/Wozniacki family is playing games with who the new coach will be. It leads me to suspect that the stepping down has nothing to do with Caroline's desire to play more offensively and that her father had to step down quickly.

There is also talk of a power struggle between the golfer Caroline is said to be dating and her father. That gets an eye roll from me. Professional athletes don't make changes when someone has been in their life all of five minutes. Between her agents, her management company and the WTA I don't think there's a lot of room for the "fuck all of you" school of pro tennis.

Keep in mind I have no idea of what is really going on. The above is idle speculation on my part.

No report on the state of the WTA is complete without discussing one Miss Serena Williams. When she made her return in Europe I said that if she comes back and lays waste to the WTA it wouldn't be the brightest hour for the WTA. Serena wasn't physically ready to come back then and the rust was literally dripping from her. That is not the case now.

Serena has gotten herself to #31 in the rankings, high enough to be a seed at the US Open. There are a lot of people arguing that the US Open should do like Wimbledon does and give Serena a higher seed. It's not that all of these people are suddenly in love with Serena Williams. It's because as a lower seed she is tantamount to a dangerous floater and can take out some of the blonde ponytailed darlings the WTA relentlessly promotes early in the tournament. Ranking her among the top ten would seem to insure that she faces qualifiers and wild cards as well as lower ranked players and wouldn't meet one of the darlings until the second week.

In other words they're scared shitless of Serena continuing her rampage through the ranks of the WTA. Rank her higher they're screaming or there will be chaos! Bonuses and television rankings depend on certain darlings making it to the second week. We can't have this old woman beating up the little kids and taking their lunch money can we?

I still think Serena is not 100%. She was breathing heavily in her later matches in both Toronto and Stanford. It's going to be a hard road for her in New York if the Open takes place in typical NYC August weather. But I don't underestimate her will to win. She will also have a day off between each match that will probably help.

The state of the WTA depends on the physical condition of Serena Williams. And that's the truth.

The Silence is Deafening

by Savannah

Notice it? ESPN's report on the statistical probability of the last ten US Open draws being random hit like a Mike Tyson punch to the jaw of the USTA. Sure the man who runs the draw made a weak response saying "not us" but the report stands and anyone looking at it with an open mind can't help but agree with the conclusion reached by the authors of the study.

Here is the statistical data.

Men's Grand Slam Percent of draw simula-tions as easy as actual draws
Australian 71.2%
French 69.5%
Wimbledon 37.0%
U.S. Open 0.3%

Women's Grand Slam Percent of draw simula-tions as easy as actual draws
Australian 94.7%
French 99.2%
Wimbledon 30.7%
U.S. Open 0.0%

Since Wimbledon uses their own system there is no cause for alarm that their percentages are low. They admit that their system isn't random and the simulations prove that.

The probability that the US Open draws for the last ten years have been random is, to put it mildly, non existant.

As regular readers know I've taken the position for years that draws have been rigged to favor certain players. It was always amazing to me that some players were given cup cake draws while others had to fight tooth and nail to get to the quarter finals where they would arrive battered and bruised, barely able to crawl on court while a favored opponent waltzed on court fresh as a daisy.

There is an old canard about statistics and lies but let me say this. Does anyone think ESPN rushed this report out without having more than one geek review it? Would ESPN stake it's reputation on a report attacking the reputation of one of the pillars of American sports? Don't you think that ESPN knows that the report calls into question the validity of certain players "dominance" of the event, an event it spends beaucoup bucks to broadcast? This is old news to me but it's sent some fans over the edge.

The overwhelming fan response has been to call bullshit, that the basic assumptions of the study have to be wrong. On one fan site where posters have the option of flying their country's flag the overwhelming majority of posters flying the stars and stripes have said the report is garbage. Others have just called bullshit because they don't believe this could be true.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Anything done via a computer program can be made to reflect the will of the person or organization requesting the work. Anyone who has worked in an office can tell you how easy it is for a programmer to make sure a desired result comes out of an analysis. It's not quite garbage in, garbage out but say the desired result is that Player X make the final relatively unscathed. When the computer spits out the "random" draw lo and behold Player X is playing qualifiers and juniors trying to break into the Main Tour while Player Y is facing Murderer's Row.

Examples? Let's look at the 2007 US Open ATP draw.

(1)Roger Federer vs Jenkins (Q)
Schuettler (Q) vs Capdeville (Q)
Ascione (Q) vs De Voest (Q)
[WC] John Isner USA vs.Jarkko Nieminen FIN (26)

(21) Juan Carlos Ferrero ESP vs. Feliciano Lopez ESP
Robert Kendrick USA vs. Igor Andreev RUS
[WC] Donald Young USA vs. Chris Guccione AUS
Sergio Roitman ARG vs. Richard Gasquet FRA (13)

(9) Tomas Berdych CZE vs. Marc Gicquel FRA
Simone Bolelli ITA vs. Julien Benneteau FRA
Gilles Simon FRA vs. Waske(Q)
Fernando Verdasco ESP vs. Paul-Henri Mathieu FRA (22)

(32) Ivo Karlovic CRO vs. Arnaud Clement FRA
Thomas Johansson SWE vs. Nicolas Massu CHI
Jose Acasuso ARG vs. Martin Vassallo Arguello ARG
Justin Gimelstob USA vs. Andy Roddick USA (5)

(4) NikolayDavydenkoRUS vs. [WC] Jesse Levine USA
Nicolas Kiefer GER vs. Vincent Spadea USA
Peter Luczak AUS vs. Luis Horna PER
[WC] Alex Kuznetsov USA vs. NicolasAlmagro ESP (28)

(19) AndyMurray GBR vs. Cuevas (Q)
Juan-Pablo Guzman ARG vs. Jonas Bjorkman SWE
Dominik Hrbaty SVK vs. Hyung-Taik Lee KOR
Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo ESP vs. Guillermo Canas ARG (14)

(10) Tommy Haas GER vs. Darcis (Q)
Benjamin Becker GER vs. Petzchsner (Q)
Paul Goldstein USA vs. Sebastien Grosjean FRA
Max Mirnyi BLR vs. Marcos Baghdatis CYP (18)

(29) Filippo Volandri ITA vs. Michael Llodra FRA
Stefan Koubek AUT vs. Sam Querrey USA
Fabrice Santoro FRA vs. Albert Montanes ESP
Michael Russell USA vs. James Blake USA (6)

(8) TommyRobredo ESP vs. Reynolds (LL)
Mardy Fish USA vs. Echagaray (Q)
Przyziezny (Q) vs. Michael Berrer GER
Ernests Gulbis LAT vs. PotitoStarace ITA (30)

(17) CarlosMoya ESP vs. Phau (Q)
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez ESP vs. Igor Kunitsyn RUS
Mariano Zabaleta ARG vs. Philipp Kohlschreiber GER
Nicolas Devilder FRA vs. Mikhail Youzhny RUS (11)

(16) Lleyton Hewitt AUS vs. Amer Delic USA
Andreas Seppi ITA vs. Agustin Calleri ARG
Sela (Q) vs. Nicolas Lapentti ECU
Edouard Roger-Vasselin FRA vs. Juan Monaco ARG (23)

(31) Jurgen Melzer AUT vs. Diego Hartfield ARG
Juan Martin del Potro ARG vs. Nicolas Mahut FRA
Carlos Berlocq ARG vs. Radek Stepanek CZE
Mario Ancic CRO vs.Novak Djokovic SRB (3)

l(7) Fernando Gonzalez CHI vs. Teimuraz Gabashvili RUS
Robby Ginepri USA vs. Olivier Rochus BEL
Stanislas Wawrinka SUI vs. Evgeny Korolev RUS
Dancevic(Q) vs. Marat Safin RUS (25)

(20) Juan Ignacio Chela ARG vs. [WC] Michael McClune USA
Danai Udomchoke THA vs. [WC] Wayne Odesnik USA
Pavel(Q) vs Meffert (Q)
Kristof Vliegen BEL vs. Ivan Ljubicic CRO (12)

(15) David Ferrer ESP vs. Florian Mayer GER
Florent Serra FRA vs. Werner Eschauer AUT
Xavier Malisse BEL vs. Kristian Pless DEN
Ivan Navarro Pastor ESP vs. David Nalbandian ARG (24)

(27) Dmitry Tursunov RUS vs. Tim Henman GBR
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga FRA vs. Oscar Hernandez ESP
Janko Tipsarevic SRB vs. [WC] Ryan Sweeting USA
[WC] Alun Jones AUS vs. Rafael Nadal ESP (2)

Luck of the Draw everyone said when questions were raised about the top half of the draw. Ironically this is the draw that is mentioned in the report for the men.

Here is the women's draw for the same year, 2007

(1) HENIN, Justine (BEL)vs QUALIFIER,
POUTCHKOVA, Olga RUS vs QUALIFIER,
QUALIFIER, vs SCHRUFF, Julia GER
QUALIFIER, vs (28) SUGIYAMA, Ai JPN

(17) GOLOVIN, Tatiana FRA vs ROLLE, Ahsha USA
CHAN, Yung-Jan TPE vs KNAPP, Karin ITA
RUANO PASCUAL, Virginia ESP vs BONDARENKO, Kateryna UKR
CASTANO, Catalina COL vs (15) SAFINA, Dinara RUS

(10) BARTOLI, Marion FRA vs (WC)GLATCH, Alexa USA
ERRANI, Sara ITA vs QUALIFIER,
PETKOVIC, Andrea GER vs (WC)COHEN, Audra USA
(WC)MOORE, Jessica AUS vs (20) SAFAROVA, Lucie CZE

(27) ZVONAREVA, Vera RUS vs QUALIFIER,
(WC)ALBANESE, Lauren USA vs LIKHOVTSEVA, Elena RUS
POUTCHEK, Tatiana BLR vs CAMERIN, Maria Elena ITA
KERBER, Angelique GER vs (8) WILLIAMS, Serena USA

(3) JANKOVIC, Jelena SRB vs GAJDOSOVA, Jarmila SVK
ARVIDSSON, Sofia SWE vs GOVORTSOVA, Olga BLR
OBZILER, Tzipora ISR vs WOZNIACKI, Caroline DEN
QUALIFIER, vs (29) STOSUR, Samantha AUS

(19) BAMMER, Sybille AUT vs TANASUGARN, Tamarine THA
KING, Vania USA vs SHAUGHNESSY, Meghann USA
CRAYBAS, Jill USA vs QUALIFIER,
COHEN-ALORO, Stephanie FRA vs (14) DEMENTIEVA, Elena RUS

(12) WILLIAMS, Venus USA vs QUALIFIER,
OLARU, Ioana Raluca ROU vs HARKLEROAD, Ashley USA
DANIILIDOU, Eleni GRE vs MEUSBURGER, Yvonne AUT
DULKO, Gisela ARG vs (21) BONDARENKO, Alona UKR

(25) SANTANGELO, Mara ITA vs DUSHEVINA, Vera RUS
BYCHKOVA, Ekaterina RUS vs QUALIFIER,
QUALIFIER, vs REZAI, Aravane FRA
NAKAMURA, Aiko JPN vs (5) IVANOVIC, Ana SRB

7) PETROVA, Nadia RUS vs BACSINSZKY, Timea SUI
RODIONOVA, Anastasia RUS vs SAVCHUK, Olga UKR
QUALIFIER, vs SZAVAY, Agnes HUN
BRIANTI, Alberta ITA vs (32) KRAJICEK, Michaella NED

(22) SREBOTNIK, Katarina SLO vs MOLIK, Alicia AUS
KIRILENKO, Maria RUS vs MULLER, Martina GER
KOSTANIC TOSIC, Jelena CRO vs VESNINA, Elena RUS
VAKULENKO, Julia UKR vs (9) HANTUCHOVA, Daniela SVK

(16) HINGIS, Martina SUI vs JOHANSSON, Mathilde FRA
MALEK, Tatjana GER vs QUALIFIER,
QUALIFIER, vs AZARENKA, Victoria BLR
CIBULKOVA, Dominika SVK vs (23) GARBIN, Tathiana ITA

(31) MEDINA GARRIGUES, Anabel vs WOZNIAK, Aleksandra CAN
DOMINGUEZ LINO, Lourdes E vs CHO, Yoon Jeong KOR
PIN, Camille FRA vs QUALIFIER,
ZAKOPALOVA, Klara CZE vs (6) KUZNETSOVA, Svetlana RUS

(6) CHAKVETADZE, Anna RUS vs (WC)WEINHOLD, Ashley USA
(WC)JACKSON, Jamea USA vs PRATT, Nicole AUS
GRANVILLE, Laura USA vs QUALIFIER,
KANEPI, Kaia EST vs (26) MIRZA, Sania IND

(24) SCHIAVONE, Francesca ITA vs DECHY, Nathalie FRA
ARN, Greta GER vs PASZEK, Tamira AUT
BREMOND, Severine FRA vs GALLOVITS, Edina ROU
BENESOVA, Iveta CZE vs (11) SCHNYDER, Patty SUI

(13) VAIDISOVA, Nicole CZE vs KUDRYAVTSEVA, Alla RUS
PENNETTA, Flavia ITA vs PENG, Shuai CHN
MATTEK, Bethanie USA vs BRENGLE, Madison USA
TU, Meilen USA vs (18) PEER, Shahar ISR

(30) RADWANSKA, Agnieszka POL vs MORIGAMI, Akiko JPN
LOIT, Emilie FRA vs RAZZANO, Virginie FRA
SHVEDOVA, Yaroslava RUS vs DELLACQUA, Casey AUS
VINCI, Roberta ITA vs (2) SHARAPOVA, Maria RUS

Here is what I said back then. Remember the comments are on the 2007 versions of players.

Re the top half of the women's draw:

Marion. Ana. Lucie. Venus. Jelena. Dinara. Tatiana. Serena. A nice mix of seeds to go along with the world No. 1 Henin. There are also some lower seeds who have had a pretty good year in the mix. Rezai is hungry. Sybille Bammer wants to go deep into the draw. Ai Sugiyama can pull a good one out every now and then. Possible matchups? Justine and Serena for the third time in the quarters. Venus vs. Ivanovic? Maybe. The competition in this side of the draw will be fierce.

This is what I said about the bottom half.

Okay. So let's see. Nadia. Headcase. Daniela. Good player. Two weeks will tax her physically. Martina. Bad back. Svetlana. Have to classify her as a headcase. She is coming back off of a shoulder injury that kept her out of Fed Cup as well. Anna. Good player. Not a great player yet. And how many times this summer is she going to play Sania Mirza? Sania hasn't shown she's got the mental toughness to make it to the second week. Patty. Nicole coming back from illness. Shahar's level of play has slacked off lately. Ms. Radwanska is pretty good but not Grand Slam good yet.

And, oh yes, there is Maria, the "Golden Girl" of the WTA. While the ladies in the top half duke it out, Ms. Sharapova will be banging and grunting her way through to meet a player who has had to bite and claw her way through her matches. I don't mean to disparage any of the players in the bottom half of the draw. I mean who was Marion Bartoli a few weeks ago? Anyone can get hot and pull an upset.

There are those who argue that it is impossible to rig a draw in a players favor because there are too many safeguards in place. But when boards that were known for banning people because they didn't like a player favored by the mods have threads titled "RIGGED!!!!" and another one asking why is it that a certain player seems to always get a nice draw, things are a little out of control. Justine is the top female player in the world. So they threw a qualifier her way for her first round match. Once she gets past her quarter the Big Babes will be waiting for her. Meanwhile number two will be practicing her smile and wave. I guess sometimes it does pay to be No. 2.

I caught a lot of flack for that post but I never hesitated to point out when a player was being hidden or protected. I was never a fan of Justine Henin but I always said they tried to do her in when she played in New York. I should mention that the shenanigans didn't work for the women. Sharapova lost in the third round if I recall correctly and Henin won it all.

So what now? As I write this the USTA hasn't said a word. The crack journalists who cover tennis haven't said a word. Fans who have had abuse heaped on them for saying something was rotten are vindicated. Not every fan has a blog but every fan has an opinion. My questions about how the US Open is run go back to 2003 when the top American got the breaks at the expense of the then top Spaniard.

I know everyone is going to be paying attention to this years draw. Let's see how much luck is in it for some players.

US Open Draws Not Random

by Savannah

Taking a break from my mini vacay from blogging to post this article. I'm posting it in its entirety so I can't be accused of selective quoting. Excuse me while I go do the "I told you so" dance in the corner.

An "Outside the Lines" analysis of 10 years of men's and women's Grand Slam draws shows the top two men's and women's seeds in the U.S. Open -- on average -- faced easier opponents in the first round than is statistically probable if the draws were truly random.

Not only do both of the men's and women's first-round U.S. Open matchups deviate significantly from true randomness, this skewed pattern was not found at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, which use a similar draw system. At the French Open, the difficulty of opponents for the top two women's players during that time period was significantly more difficult than a random draw should produce, but the men were in line.


USTA Pro Circuit Director Brian Earley, who has been the U.S. Open tournament referee since 1992 and presides over the draw, said he stands by his system. However, he said he was concerned about the questions the analysis raises about the random nature of the draw.

"I have such faith in the folks within my work that if there was something unfair about it, I think it probably would have been proven to me and to the tournament before this," he said. "But we are always interested in hearing input."

"Outside the Lines" analyzed the average difficulty -- determined by the players' ATP or WTA rankings before the draws -- of those who played the top two seeds in all Grand Slams over 10 years. That was compared to 1,000 random simulations of 10 years of Grand Slam draws -- or the equivalent of producing 10,000 random draws taken 10 years at a time.

Only three of OTL's 1,000 simulations produced first-round opponents as easy as those the top two men's seeds have actually faced on average over 10 years in the U.S. Open. In none of the 1,000 simulations did OTL get the extreme results found in 10 years of actual opening matchups for the top two women's Open seeds.

Dr. Andrew Swift, past chairman of the American Statistical Association's Section on Statistics in Sports and an assistant mathematics professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said the analysis and its methodology were sound.

"Any way you want to look at these, there is significant evidence here that these did not come from a random draw," he said.

That finding didn't surprise Scoville Jenkins, who in 2004 was ranked 1,433rd in the ATP singles rankings when he scored a wild-card entry into the U.S. Open. That made him the lowest-ranked player among the 128 entries in the men's tennis tournament. His opponent in the draw? No. 2 seed and defending champion Andy Roddick.

"At the time you think, 'Wow, this is unlucky,'" he said. "There's so many players in the draw I could have played."

A truly random draw for the unseeded players -- which is promised by USTA officials -- should have given Jenkins a two-thirds chance of playing another unseeded player, and a roughly 31 percent chance of playing a seeded opponent outside the top two seeds. He had a 2.08 percent chance of facing a top-two seed.

After facing Roddick in the first round in 2004, Jenkins drew No. 1 seed Roger Federer in the first round in 2007, when Jenkins was the 125th-best player in the tournament, according to the OTL analysis. He lost both times.

"Sometimes I think they put the player against who they would like to play," said Jenkins, who has since retired from professional tennis and is now an assistant tennis coach at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta. "If somebody came out tomorrow and said, 'This whole time we weren't doing it random and we were picking by whatever system,' it would not surprise me."

After being presented with the "Outside the Lines" analysis, Swift conducted his own study of the opponents of the top two seeds and found that only four times in 1 million simulations did he come up with an average ranking equal to or easier than what was actually observed in the men's and women's draws over the last 10 years.

"By itself, the U.S. [Open] numbers are weird," he said. "And then they're also weird in comparison to the other three Grand Slams. So you've got a double argument of weirdness here. Something weird is going on."

Trying to determine what has happened

But what exactly could that be?

"If there were anyone trying to fix this draw, which is comical to me & it would not be within my group and not within the USTA and not within the U.S. Open group," Earley said.

TOP SEEDS' FIRST-ROUND DRAWS

How frequently ESPN's simulated draws came up with average difficulty scores that were at least as low as scores for the actual Grand Slam draws. Percentages closer to 0 indicate a lower likelihood that the actual results are strictly due to random chance.

Men's Grand Slam Percent of draw simula-tions as easy as actual draws
Australian 71.2%
French 69.5%
Wimbledon 37.0%
U.S. Open 0.3%

Women's Grand Slam Percent of draw simula-tions as easy as actual draws
Australian 94.7%
French 99.2%
Wimbledon 30.7%
U.S. Open 0.0%

He said the computerized random draw is done as a small ceremony in a room in which representatives of the USTA and the men's and women's tennis associations and the chief of the Grand Slam supervisors are usually present. One of them gets to push the button on the computer that generates the draw of the unseeded players, which is displayed on a screen and printed out right away.

"So … you would have to say, 'Oh, yeah, well it's some programmer somewhere trying to decide, trying to fix this, or someone hacking into your system. I don't see that happening, either," Earley said.

Earley said he would consult with representatives of Information & Display Systems, the company that provides the software that generates the random draw. IDS has been providing the random draw software for the U.S. Open for more than 10 years, and does the draw for the Australian Open.

"I don't know how to explain it," Earley said. "And maybe we'll talk again, after I speak to someone who can give me a little bit better analysis of this, of how these could have happened, how this could have happened. Or if indeed it is as much of an anomaly as these would seem to indicate."

Leo Levin, IDS director of product development, said there is no problem with the program. A week after "Outside the Lines" presented its findings to the USTA, the organization forwarded an email from IDS president Rallis Pappas, in which he said the company simulated 200 draws. The 10-year averages in their sample were indeed random, but neither IDS nor the USTA offered an explanation for the skewed actual draws over the last 10 years, other than to say it had to have happened by random chance.

Chris Widmaier, managing director of communication for the USTA, said the organization stands by IDS and believes that it produces an automated random draw.

"If we were to put on 10,000 U.S. Opens, we'd probably see whatever the statistical average is, but we only put on one U.S. Open a year and for the last 10 years, the numbers have been the numbers," Wildmaier said. "I don't know what else we can say." He added there were no plans to investigate further and no changes will be made for this year's draw, scheduled for Aug. 24-25.

"I believe the answer is the age old saying, the luck of the draw," wrote Levin in an email, prior to conferring with the USTA. "There is nothing that happens at the U.S. Open draw that isn't done at other tournaments. Therefore, since the process is the same, the answer must be that's how they came out."

But Swift seemingly doesn't agree with that answer.

"There's always the chance that, yes, freak occurrences happen. But you're telling me a freak occurrence has happened with the men and the women?" he asked. "Double freak occurrences?"

Tennis fans have questioned the men's draw before, including two men Earley said approached him at a match last year with what they said was evidence the draw wasn't random. But he said he didn't agree with their conclusions. The men also took their data to ESPN, which televises the U.S. Open draw ceremony and tournament. ESPN examined their data, but its own statistician did an expanded analysis of both the men's and women's draws at all Grand Slam tournaments and came up with these findings.

Earley said the "Outside the Lines" analysis was the first time anyone had questioned the women's draw.

"What's really making the case are the players ranked in the 90s and 100, right?" he asked. "I mean, those are the ones that really skew the test?"

The top two seeds in each draw could have a first-round matchup with any unseeded player whose tournament rank is 33 through 128. Over the last 10 years, the average rank of opponents in the women's draw has been 98.5, and 97.2 for the men. A random draw should produce an average closer to 80.5.

"To get something as far away from 80 as 100 is extremely unlikely," Swift said. "If you looked at the other three Grand Slams over the same time period, the average rank of the opponents of the top two seeds in both the men's and women's sides was close to 80. It was close enough that it wasn't statistically significant."

Players: Two thoughts on playing top seeds

One of the players possibly affected by the statistical oddity was CoCo Vandeweghe. Vandeweghe's world ranking was 518 before she earned wild-card entry into the 2008 U.S. Open, which made her tournament rank 126 out of 128.

The then-16-year-old was coming out of practice one day when a friend asked if she had seen the draw.

"[My friend] said, 'You won't believe who you play,'" Vandeweghe recounted. "I said, 'Who is it?'" Her friend responded, "Jelena Jankovic," the No. 2 seed in the Open. "I thought they were kidding," Vandeweghe said.

She and Jankovic ended up playing a night match on the first day of the Open, which Vandeweghe said was "pretty crazy." She lost 3-6, 1-6.

"I was definitely happy to be playing a player of that caliber and kind of just see where I was at that point with my own game with a player like that," she said. "I took it all in as an experience. At the time, I thought I definitely could give her a run for her money."

When told about the U.S. Open draw analysis and the possibility that it was not random, Vandeweghe said it made her think about her experience being a No. 1 seed in other tournaments.

"If the No. 1 seed gets a slightly weaker draw, that's good news for them," she said. "It's kind of a funny stat to hear, especially when I've been a part of that stat."

Devin Britton was the lowest-ranked player when he entered the 2009 U.S. Open and drew Federer in the first round. Then 18, he had won only one set in his short professional career.

"I was kind of hoping to play another wild card to get a good shot at winning a match, but it was definitely a blessing to play Roger," he said. "You don't get that kind of atmosphere anywhere else."

Despite first-set nerves that Britton said caused him to trip over his feet, the newcomer broke Federer's serve and took at 3-1 lead in the second set.

"The crowd cheered a little bit and I thought, 'Oh, gosh, there's a lot of people out there,'" Britton said.

If for some reason, the draw for opponents for the top two seeds was skewed toward picking players at the very bottom of the rankings, such as Jenkins, Britton and Vandeweghe, those players said they aren't upset about the matchups -- even though they would have made more money in the tournament had they advanced to the second round.

Britton said he could see how that would be bad for people going into the Open with a lower ranking, but he said he still valued his experience and learned a lot from playing Federer.

"I could see where a lot of people would be upset about that," he said. "There's definitely two sides to it."

Jenkins had a similar attitude.

"Of course you wish you could have got somebody easier in the first round, second round. Next you realize that you're in a sport where you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best. He's the guy you have to get past," Jenkins said. " … That's the way it happens sometimes. It's not fair. It's a part of life, a part of sport. It happens."

As for the No. 1 and 2 seeds, representatives for Federer and Rafael Nadal declined a request for an interview. Representatives for recent top female seeds Jankovic, Serena Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, and Kim Clijsters also declined comment.

Top two seeds rarely lose Grand Slam openers

Top players boycotted the U.S. Open draw in 1996, forcing the USTA to remake the draw after allegations it could have been rigged to favor certain American players. The players were upset the then-16 seeded players were chosen after the first part of the draw. The association ended up redoing the draw with the seeds in place. And in 2001, the U.S. Open changed to seeding 32 players, which meant none of them would face a first- or second-round opponent whose rank in the tournament was better than 33. Wimbledon also changed to 32 seeds that year, with the French and Australian opens following the next year.

Even though the No. 1 and 2 players in the U.S. Open drew easier opponents on average among the pool of unseeded players, it did not seem to have any impact on whether they won or lost in the first two rounds, based on a comparison with how the top two seeds progressed in the other three Grand Slams. It's unclear what impact, if any, the skewed first-round matches had on the rest of the tournament.

"Being nice to the star players? Getting an easier pair? They're getting an easier pair [already]," Swift said.

The highest-ranked unseeded player that any of the top two men's seeds have played in the first round since 2001 was 41. It was 37 for the women. The top seeds won both times. In fact, since 2001, no No. 1 or 2 seed has lost a first-round match in the U.S. Open or the French Open and only twice each at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

"What would the U.S. Open gain by fixing the draw in this way? I believe the U.S. Open would gain nothing," Earley said. "I think that that would be a risk that the U.S. Open would never take. Never."

Paula Lavigne is a reporter in ESPN's Enterprise Unit. Her work appears on "Outside the Lines." She can be reached at paula.lavigne@espn.com. Alok Pattani is an Analytics Specialist with the ESPN Stats & Information Group.

SOURCE

Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

by Savannah


It was a given that Marion Bartoli would fight back. Some complained that quarterfinalist Maria Sharapova didn't, that she was intimidated and tight. Semi finalist Sabine Lisicki, the flame thrower of the new generation put up a bit of a fight but in the end she went down with a bit of a whimper. The newly slim - not yet svelte-Bartoli was a horse of a different color. With all her twists and turns and jumping up and down it's easy to overlook her ability to play with power. All the moving around is a disguise, a way for Marion to distract and confuse while she blows you off the court. She defeated a just returning to play Serena at Wimbledon and if you think both players didn't have that match in mind I don't know what to tell you.

The match was played at noon California time, a time probably dictated by broadcast requirements, and Serena, who was playing her first day match came out a little slow. The sun was obviously bothering her from one side and Marion looked as if she was going to run away with the first set. If she had been playing anyone else, one of the new jacks perhaps, that would've been the case.

Instead Serena worked herself into that first set. Ignoring the scoreline she used a service motion she's never used in public before and while it didn't quite work showed that she was thinking, in the match and looking for her chance. Her Dad was there but she didn't call him down to discuss strategy or bitch. This is the Williams way.

Marion on the other hand asked to talk to her coach/father Walter when she was up 5-4. He seemed to give her a pep talk and she seemed satisfied. When she looked up again she had lost five straight games.

Marion is not of the old or new generation. She is a player unto herself. But reflexively she asked for a consult she didn't need. And that tightened her up mentally and physically. There was some discussion about her hand and she kept shaking her right arm out but when she finally won a game she was striking the ball without any problem. For many that is the problem with Maid Marion. Again her goal is to obfuscate, to distract. Serena didn't go for it.

There is talk about Serena being a favorite for the US Open. There are some who say you'll have to pry the trophy out of Kim Clijsters cold hands. Clijsters had not played since she showed up for the French Open and was quickly dispatched. This is her strategy. She comes into the US Open fresh as a daisy while everyone else has been playing as full a schedule as they can entering Flushing Meadows. Toronto and Cincinnati are Mandatory for WTA players. So was San Diego. It's a given in my book that Clijsters will have a very nice draw in New York just like she always has. Look for Serena, who will be unseeded, to have to face murderers row.
I'm not making Serena my favorite for the US Open. She is playing much better than she was in Paris and London but her father says she's only 60% back. You ignore Richard Williams comments about his daughters at your peril.

I didn't see the final at Umag in Croatia but I did see the semifinal between Juan Carlos Ferrero and Aleksandr Dolgopolov the day before. Dolgopolov shut down any and every idea Juanqui had defeating the defending champion. It seems the man with the best hair in the ATP had relaxed and was playing a style he hadn't played before. He made Ferrero look and maybe feel old. It was no surprise to me to hear that he defeated local favorite Marin Cilic. And yeah, that is one hell of a trophy. And no I ain't goin' there.

Nadia Petrova wore a kit by Ellesse and found her way to a trophy ceremony for the first time since 2008 at the inaugural CitiOpen held in a suburb of Washington DC. In the middle of the US Open series the WTA stages an inaugural event that is not part of that series allowing Tennis Channel to totally diss their product during an intriguing semi final match between Shahar Pe'er and Tamira Paszek and switch without an announcement that they were going to do so, to the semifinal between Ryan Harrison and Mardy Fish in Los Angeles.I finished watching the match online and decided that that was the last time I would invest in a woman's match on TC. Even though Harrison made it interesting there was no way Fish wasn't going to win that match. It was unclear who would win the women's semifinal. Add to that the heat and the length of the match and it was a better match to watch. Then again, who cares if two non Americans were playing a match that some suit decided should have been over in about two hours right? Much more exciting to see the "Alpha Male" of American tennis playing the up and comer, the future of American tennis right?

But I digress. I'm glad Nadia, retro kit and all, won a tournament. Sure Pe'er, after a three hour match was fried, but a win is a win even if US television decides your match is unimportant.

Marcel Granollers won the all Spanish final at Gstaad defeating the newly shorn Fernando Verdasco. Once again the PR firm representing the Alien Babies protested the use of one of their species gestation device. And once again their protests fell on deaf ears.

Ernests Gulbis doesn't fit the US tennis establishments view of a player from Eastern Europe. As tennis heads know all players from Eastern Europe have crawled out of their hovels and play tennis to the best of their abilities because they don't want to go back to their shacks with dirt floors and outdoor toilet facilities. Like many American players Ernests comes from a "very wealthy family" and his fits and starts on the court have been attributed to his "not needing to play" tennis. After all he flies to and from events in a private plane they always say.

None of this gets mentioned when someone like Sam Querrey, who also comes from a very wealthy family, plays. Last I checked Andy Roddick's family isn't destitute and neither is Mardy Fish's family but again I digress. They were blathering on about Ernests father and how he made his money and only Darren Cahill was able to shut them up and insert some talk about the tennis into his commentary. He couldn't do anything about Pam Shriver making up injuries for Mardy Fish when it became clear he wasn't going to pound Ernests into the pavement and win the match. The biggest question was whether Ernests would hold his nerve and defeat the visibly fatigued Fish.

The only thing Gulbis did wrong, and I'm sure his coach Guillermo Canas ripped him a new one about it, was when serving to close out his service game up 40-0 in the second set Gulbis served and before the ball landed was walking off the court. Gulbis hasn't earned the right to do shit like that and even if he did think he has swagger you don't do that. It's a bush league move and all it did was piss Fish off and force Gulbis to have to serve twice for the match. He closed it out the second time but he's going to have to check his ego at the gate going forward.

Xavier Malisse and Mark Knowles won the doubles crown in Los Angeles.

Sania Mirza and Yaroslava Shevedova took the doubles crown at the CitiOpen.

Maria Kirilenko and Victoria Azarenka were the doubles queens at Stanford.

The team of Cermak and Polasek were the doubles winners at Gstaad.

Bolelli and Fognini were the champions at Umag.