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Sunday, August 28, 2016

Twenty-three Americans Play Monday in US Open First Round; Doubles Draws Posted; Poling, Ramirez Win ITF Grade 4 Titles; Grade 1 Canadian Open Underway



Thirty-nine Americans--17 men and 22 women--are in the main singles draws at the US Open and 23 of them (shown below, in italics) play their first matches on Monday.

Madison Keys[8] v Alison Riske

Jack Sock[26] v Taylor Fritz

Taylor Townsend[Q] v Caroline Wozniacki(DEN)

John Isner[20] v Frances Tiafoe[WC]

Johanna Konta(GBR)[13] v Bethanie Mattek-Sands[WC]

Samantha Crawford v Belinda Bencic(SUI)[24]

Brian Baker v Federico Delbonis(ARG)

Naomi Osaka(JPN) v CoCo Vandeweghe[28]

Madison Brengle v Kayla Day[WC]

CiCi Bellis[Q] v Viktorija Golubic(SUI)

Lukas Lacko(SVK) v Ernesto Escobedo[WC]

Danielle Collins[WC] v Evgeniya Rodina(RUS)

Bjorn Fratangelo[WC] v Guido Pella(ARG)

Christina McHale v Mona Barthel(GER)

Jan Satral(CZE)[Q] v Mackenzie McDonald[WC]

Aliaksandra Sasnovich(BLR) v Lauren Davis[WC]

Sara Errani(ITA)[27] v Shelby Rogers

Adrian Mannarino(FRA) v Ryan Harrison[Q]

Irina Falconi v Cagla Buyukakcay(TUR)

The matches between Isner and Tiafoe and Sock and Fritz are among the highest profile men's matches, of course.  Steve Tignor at Tennis.com has a preview of both matches here.

The young Americans have been the subject of many articles this past week.  Tiafoe is profiled by Great Britain's The Telegraph here.  The differing developmental paths of Fritz and Tiafoe are the subject of this lengthy article in New York magazine. And Doug Robson takes a look at the group of the 18- and 19-year-olds in this article for the Washington Post.

Bobby Knight of College Tennis Today has been researching the performance of the NCAA singles champions who have received wild cards into the US Open with the results in this post.  The US Open singles competitors with college ties are listed in this post.

The doubles draws have been released, with the men's here and the women's here.  The wild cards include the NCAA champions: Mackenzie McDonald and Martin Redlicki of UCLA and Kourtney Keegan and Brooke Austin of Florida.  McDonald and Redlicki have drawn top seeds Mahut and Herbert of France, while Keegan and Austin play fellow wild cards Taylor Townsend and Asia Muhammad.  Junior girls champions Ena Shibahara and Jada Hart face No. 7 seed Sania Mirza of India and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic. Junior boys champions John McNally and JJ Wolf play unseeded Chris Guccione of Australia and Andre Sa of Brazil.

Eric Quigley(Kentucky) and Nick Meister(UCLA) won the men's US Open National Playoffs wild card and Jacqueline Cako(Arizona State) and Danielle Lao(USC) won the women's USONP wild card.

The mixed doubles draw is not yet posted, but yesterday former Michigan Wolverines Emina Bektas and Evan King won the US Open National Playoffs to earn a wild card into the main draw.

In ITF Junior results outside the US this week, Miranda Ramirez won the ITF Grade 4 in France and Karl Poling won the Grade 4 singles title in Slovenia.  The 17-year-old Ramirez, seeded No. 1, beat Emeline Dartron of France 7-6(6), 6-0 in the final for her fourth ITF singles title and the second Grade 4 title this summer.  The 17-year-old Poling, seeded No. 8, defeated unseeded Alessandro Ingarao of Italy 6-2, 6-2 in the final.  It is Poling's second ITF singles title and first this year; he won a Grade 5 in Canada in 2015.  Katie Lafrance won the doubles title at the Grade 4 in Mauritius.

The Grade 1 Canadian Open in underway outside of Montreal, with Ulises Blanch and Felix Auger-Aliassime the top two boys seeds.  The top two girls seeds are Bianca Andreescu of Canada and Olga Danilovic of Serbia.  The seeds begin play on Monday, with Auger-Aliassime taking on Sam Riffice and Danilovic facing Katie Swan of Great Britain.

5 comments:

Big Mike said...

Can anybody provide a credible reason why Rubin was given a doubles WC? He hasn't played doubles in any pro tournament yet the USTA, in their infinite wisdom, screwed the pooch yet again. There are more deserving US players that should have been rewarded based on their doubles performances throughout the year.

Updatefrom New York said...

Christian Harrison gets beat by Paul-Henri Mathieu in first round of the US OPEN....0,2,1.....

Update from New York said...

Ryan Harrison beats 5 seed in 4 sets. Maybe you people can stop whining about wildcards and find someone capable of doing that.

Hoping for US Male Champions said...

@Update, I'm happy that Harrison finally got a break after having so many bad draws at majors and didn't blow the opportunity, but let's not get too excited about this win. If you saw the match you would have noticed that Raonic was physically compromised from the very beginning of the match and it just got much worse. It was a miracle that Raonic won the first set the way he was playing. He could not move for crap and was serving at half speed. He kept coming to the net on horrendous garbage shots because he couldn't sustain a back court rally. Harrison is playing a little bit better than he had been over the past couple of years, but Raonic would still beat him in straight sets had he been even close to 100%.

This is very similar to the Sam Querrey "breakthrough" that US fans were hoping for after his upset win over Djokovic at Wimbledon. Djokovic played the worst match of his life, couldn't get a ball in the court, and Querrey just played a little bit better than he had been for the past couple of years. I knew that the win over Djokovic was not going to be the beginning of a new chapter for Querrey. Sure enough Querrey played a pathetic match against Tipsarovic yesterday and failed to even try to run around his backhand to hit big forehands. He just sat there like a mouse and Tipsarovic hit every ball his backhand and took the victory that was handed to him.

birdword said...

Update from New York, maybe you can stop posting updates whenever Noah Rubin or Christian Harrison lose. You are so transparent. Wildcards are a legitimate issue which merits meaningful discussion, not glib dismissals characterized as "whining."