US Open Preview - Mostly Men, Light On The Ladies

The US Open draw was released a few days ago and since everyone loves previews, let’s take a look at the draw in detail. Where applicable, I will note a player's seeding in parentheses.

At first blush, it appears that the toughest quarter of the draw is Ivan Ljubicic’s (3), with such contenders as Andy Roddick (9), Richard Gasquet (25), Marcos Baghdatis (8) and Lleyton Hewitt (15) lurking. Andre Agassi is also in this quarter and faces a potential second round match-up with Baghdatis if he can overcome Andrei Pavel in the first round.

If the seeds hold form in this section of the draw, here are some intriguing matches:

3rd Round – Ljubicic vs. Gasquet
3rd Round – Hewitt vs. Novak Djokovic (20)
4th Round – Roddick vs. Baghdatis

As you may remember, the Cypriot ended Andy Roddick’s Australian Open dreams this past January and that will certainly fuel Andy’s motivation if this match comes to fruition. If Agassi can get his game clicking, perhaps he shows up in the fourth round versus Roddick. That would be very interesting!

This is the hardest quarter of the draw to pick because all of the contenders have question marks coming into this event.

Ljubicic – While the Croat is the third ranked player in the world, his Grand Slam performances are decidedly underwhelming. His results this summer don’t suggest a deep run in New York.

Baghdatis – The 8th seed seems to bring his “A” game to the big events while he’s mediocre the rest of the time. The quick Flushing Meadows courts should help him and if he can get through the second round, he could go to the quarterfinals at the minimum.

Roddick – The big serving American seemed to have found himself and his game in Cincinnati last week, but the challenge will be to continue that run of good play. Is this the new Andy Roddick or will he revert to his previous 2006 form? That’s an open question.

Hewitt – The 15th seed has had some injury concerns this summer, and he and coach Roger Rasheed aren’t talking when it comes to the subject of Lleyton’s fitness.

Gasquet – The young Frenchman was brilliant in Toronto a few weeks ago before crashing out of Cincy (it’s funny how that happens in the second event of consecutive ATP Master Series tournaments). If he can replicate his form from north of the border, the man with the spectacular one-handed backhand has an excellent chance of making the quarterfinals.

My pick for this quarter: Although I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, I’m going with Roddick to stay hot and continue to build on his resurgent confidence. If he serves well, plays inside the baseline and hits effective backhands down the line, he will be tough to beat on the Flushing Meadow courts.

Let’s move to Roger Federer’s quarter of the draw to see if there is anyone there who can challenge him. The short answer is “no”. However, what is notable about this cast is that it contains two of Rafael Nadal’s nemeses on hard courts: James Blake (5) and Thomas Berdych (12). In fact, if the seeding holds, these two would meet in the 4th round. Before that could happen, Berdych would have to potentially defeat one of this summer’s hottest players in Dmitry Tursunov (23). The blogging genius has shown everyone that he can hang with the best on the court as well as on the keyboard so a Blake – Tursunov encounter in the round of 16 is certainly a possibility.

The world’s number 1 should have no problem moving through this section of the draw into the semifinals. Federer has a potential date with Juan Carlos Ferrero (16) in the 4th round and then a quarterfinal clash with Blake, Berdych or Tursunov. I can’t see any of those players troubling the Mighty Fed including Tennis Magazine’s pick to win the tournament, Blake. James’ performances over the last few weeks have made a mockery of Tennis’ prognostication skills and the player himself has said that he can’t fathom how anyone wouldn’t pick Federer to win the tournament. Oh well, I guess it gets some discussion going.

My pick: Surprise! Federer.

Now, let’s head to the bottom of the draw where the number 2 seed, Rafael Nadal, resides. If this were the French Open, this quarter would be kind of exciting. Tommy Robredo (6), David Ferrer (11), Jose Acasuso (24), Gael Monfils (27), Juan Ignacio Chela (31) and Nicolas Almagro are all solid dirt-ballers. Unfortunately for them, this is New York and the courts are quick and the balls are light.

Some of the unseeded players in this section could pull some upsets. The giant Croat, Ivo Karlovic, will love the fast courts as will the ever dangerous Max Mirnyi. Xavier Malisse has an excellent chance of progressing to the 4th round where he could encounter Nadal.

Speaking of Nadal, how happy must he be to see Blake and Berdych on the other side of the draw? A quick glance at this quarter tells me that Nadal has a reasonable chance of making the semifinals. However, an outstanding question for the 20 year-old Mallorcan is how much confidence does he have based on his ATP Master Series performances in Toronto and Cincinnati? One has to believe that he was highly disappointed with his loss in Cincy to fellow Spaniard, Juan Carlos Ferrero, a man that he had never lost a set to in four previous encounters. Rafa needs to find the aggressive baseline game that he employed at Wimbledon this summer in order to make a run in New York. If he plays too defensively, as he did versus Ferrero last week, he could be ripe for an upset, but there appear to be few players in this section who could take advantage of that.

My pick: Vamos Rafa! Nadal gets through this relatively weak quarter to set up a titanic clash with Andy Roddick.

And finally, we’ve arrived at what we’ll call the Nalbandian (4) quarter. Other than Andy Murray (17), this particular section of the draw seems to be reserved for the under-achieving, less-confident segment of the ATP Tour (Marat Safin, Guillermo Coria, Robby Ginepri, Nikolay Davydenko). According to the seeding, Nalbandian should face the German, Tommy Haas (14), in the 4th round. That seems like a reasonable possibility, but the enigmatic Safin is a potentially dangerous 2nd round match for the fourth seeded Argentine.

In the other half of this quarter, Davydenko (7) is the highest seeded player, but Andy Murray looks like the most in-form competitor. Can Brad Gilbert get Murray through to the semifinals? Will fitness play a role in the Scot’s ability to progress through the draw? Murray appears to be a good bet to get through his first 2 matches which could set up a clash with the 10th seed, Fernando Gonzalez of Chile. That’s an interesting match-up and I give the nod to Murray.

My pick: I think the cooler temperatures in the Northeast US will help Andy Murray’s ability to get through matches. Murray emerges from this quarter to reach the semifinals and face the defending champion, Roger Federer.

At this point, I won’t embarrass myself any further by picking beyond the semis. Let’s see how things go over the first week of the tournament and then we can reassess.

As for the ladies, I haven’t studied that draw extensively so I can’t give any detailed analysis. However, aside from Kim Cljisters who is out due to a wrist injury suffered in Montreal, the usual cast of characters (Justine Henin-Hardenne, Amelie Mauresmo, Maria Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport) has to be considered for the title. Are some of the young guns, like Nicole Vaidisova, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic, ready to break through for a Grand Slam title? It’s not likely, but these ladies may have an impact on who will win the championship.

My pick: Henin-Hardenne comes back from injury to take the final Grand Slam of the year.

Wedge Thoughts

This post is a little overdue, but what the heck – here goes. I don’t know about other Yankee fans, but I was more than a little perturbed by the “managerial genius” of Cleveland Indians skipper Eric Wedge last week during the Tribe’s stay in Boston. Wedge single-handedly turned a four game sweep by his Indians into a 2-2 split with the Sox thus depriving the Yanks of a couple of extra games cushion in the standings.

Let’s review the pivotal moments of the two games that Wedge gifted to Boston. In the first game of the series last Monday, the Indians entered the bottom of the ninth with a lead of 8-6. At this point in the Indians’ season, no one in the bullpen had registered a save since the departure of Bob Wickman, so maybe we should cut Wedge some slack in terms of his pitching selection. He doesn’t have many tools in the shed. Regardless, the pivotal moment arrived when David Ortiz stepped to the plate with two men on base.

We all know that Manny Ramirez bats behind David Ortiz and conventional thinking tells us that you don’t walk the bases loaded to get to Manny Ramirez. Or do you when the potentially greatest clutch hitter of all-time steps to the plate? No doubt it is a tough decision and it’s compounded by the fact that a 22 year-old rookie named Fausto Carmona is on the mound. However, there is sufficient evidence available that suggests not letting Ortiz beat you in this situation. Unfortunately, Wedge appears to be a slave to conventional thinking. Not only did he choose to pitch to Ortiz and subsequently lose the game, he said later that he would do it all over again if he were in the same position. No, no, no, no, no!

Conventional wisdom shouldn’t be a barrier to learning and creativity, yet Eric Wedge isn’t bright enough to understand that. He’s not doing his job if he can’t think creatively. Just ask Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon who was in a similar situation on Sunday with Ortiz at the plate. Maddon might be on the extreme end of non-conventional thinking, but he had the guts to do what Wedge did not; he walked Ortiz to get to Manny and it paid off. Tampa Bay escaped with no damage and then won the game in the bottom half of the inning. That’s good stuff from the D-Rays!

Wedge’s second gaffe of the week versus the Red Sox occurred last Wednesday and again it was in the bottom of the ninth. Once again, Fausto Carmona was on the mound and I had a flashback to the 2001 World Series when Arizona Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenley sent closer Byung-Hyun Kim out to the mound on consecutive evenings to finish games versus the Yankees only to see it all go wrong. Kim hasn’t been the same since and I fear that Carmona may not be either. Granted, the circumstances were far different – World Series vs. run-in-the-mill regular season game – but the trauma of such losses could be devastating for a young pitcher.

Carmona appeared as if he was going to escape the game with his first save when he started having control problems. He walked a batter and hit two others, and was clearly melting down. Only when the bases were loaded did Wedge think to get another pitcher to warm-up. By then, it was too late. Carmona was allowed to pitch to Mark Loretta and Loretta delivered the game winning hit. The fact that Carmona was losing his mind on the mound was so obvious that it was shocking to me that Wedge left him in there to face the Sox second baseman. Perhaps he did it for the kid’s development – I don’t know. Whatever the reasoning, I’m not sure Wedge is managing his team to win, and maybe that’s fine for the Indians, but it isn’t so great for teams competing with the Indians’ opponents for potential playoff spots.

If Wedge hadn’t salvaged two games for the Sox, Boston might be in a complete freefall. After the Indians series, they subsequently lost 2 out of 3 to Tampa and then were swept in three games by the mighty Kansas City Royals. Red Sox fans have to be worried as their club was expected to feast on these bottom feeders before going into next weekend’s epic encounter with the Yanks. Instead, the 2004 champs are in some danger of playing themselves out of the race.

Random Thought

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are officially my second favorite club after they “tweaked” the Red Sox a few times this week. First, after their victory over the Sox on Sunday, they started to play “Sweet Caroline” over the PA system at Tropicana Field which was followed by a turntable needle scratch sound effect and then the playing of Bruce Springsteen’s “Better Days”. That was a nice touch as the Sox departed for the weekend.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the D-Rays blocked the transfer of Adam Stern to the Orioles to complete the Javy Lopez deal. That move seemed to be some form of retaliation for Tampa’s perception of the Red Sox conduct during the Julio Lugo trade talks. The two teams have had a history of conflict with their beanball wars over the last few seasons and stuff like this ensures that the animosity will continue. Now, if only the D-Rays could become consistently competitive. Then we would really have something to watch with these clubs.