US Open Day 1: Flushing Meadows

Curtain Call

Player: Andreas Haider-Maurer
Nation: Austria
Age: 23
Current Ranking: 214
Tour Page
Today's Result: loss to Robin Soderling (5th seed, Sweden) in five sets

Photo from juniortennis.com

Haider-Maurer went through qualifying to reach his first slam. Pushing the fifth seed the distance is an impressive showing.

The brothers McEnroe are currently debating the merits of Federer's between the legs shot tonight versus the one against Djokovic last year. I realize it's not so interesting to talk about the lopsided match in front of them. Heaven forbid they should stop talking altogether.

Catching Up with Old Friends

Greta Arn (Curtain Call, Wimbledon 2010 Day 5) - Today's match marks Arn's return to the US Open main draw after a three-year absence. At 31, it's good to see her making a late-career surge.


My Tennis Fantasy

First, my picks for the tournament...

Men -

Semis: Nalbandian v. Murray, Roddick v. Federer

Final: Nalbandian def. Federer

Yup, I'm going with the long shot. If he gets hot and stays healthy, Nalbandian can do it.

Women -

Semis: Kuznetsova v. Martinez Sanchez, Schiavone v. Clijsters

Final: Clijsters def. Kuznetsova

It's difficult to be too shocking with a wide-open women's field.

My suicide pool picks for Day 1 were Marion Bartoli for the women and Leonardo Mayer for the men. Bartoli came through with a straight-sets win over Edina Gallovits. Mayer, on the other hand, crashed and burned. He stormed through in the first set against French wild card Guillaume Rufin only to go down in four.

I'm still doing my bracket on the Tennis Channel site but major kudos to the US Open site for running their own bracket challenge. I think it's a great way to potentially draw the interest of casual fans and also draw the more serious fan to early round matches that otherwise wouldn't merit much attention.