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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

USTA Announces Men's Wild Cards for US Open

The much anticipated announcement on men's wild cards for the US Open was emailed to me a few minutes ago, and because it is of such interest, I'm posting it right away.

Main Draw:

Devin Britton

Chase Buchanan

Taylor Dent

Brendan Evans

Jesse Levine

Rajeev Ram

Chris Guccione (trade with Australia)

TBD (trade with France)

Qualifying Draw

Lester Cook

Grigor Dimitrov

Alex Domijan

Ryan Harrison

Scoville Jenkins

Ryan Lipman

Tim Smyczek

Blake Strode

Michael Venus

For the complete release, click on this link.

If the previous pattern holds, the women's wild cards will be announced on Thursday.

22 comments:

Observer said...

Donald Young?

Buehler?

Buehler?

The Libertarian said...

off topic: but does anyone know what the penalty was for the boy who spit at the chair umpire during the junior davis cup in champaign? i am curious as to whether it is treated as a serious offense or more like a misdemeanor.

pleasantly surprised said...

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the USTA actually got it right this year. All these guys earned their WC's either outright (like Buchanon and Lipman) or through good results. From the "old USTA" I would not have been surprised to see Ryan Harrison and Domijan given WC's into the main draw,and to see someone like Kudla or Cox in the qualies. And Domijan's poor result at K-zoo did not overshadow what he has done the rest of the year. Hope the junior wildcards are also reasonable---no 13 or 14 years olds, please.

McLovin said...

Why would Donald Young warrant a wild card? He hasn't earned his potential in the last few years. It's make or break time for him in the lower rung, IMO.

Donald Fan said...

Observer

Donald Young a main draw wildcard? WHY? Have you seen his results this year or lack of them?

His parents to stop under training him and let him start practicing like a pro player. They are killing his career.

Austin said...

So Harrison only gets a qualifying wildcard, interesting. Now I doubt it was worth it to skip the Zoo for a Challenger. Figured he would have gotten it over 24yr old Ram. However I am glad to see Rajeev get it since he has earned it on the court.

Observer said...

Calm down, Francis. I was joking. No, he doesn't deserve one. I was just pointing out that he has disappeared.

Nolo Contendere said...

I believe the young man in Champaign was penalized once for arguing/profanity and once for breaking his racket, but was not penalized for the spitting incident. It is worth noting that the US Open Men's Main Draw and Qualie Wild Cards given today to juniors mirror the head-to-head rankings at tennisrecruiting.com. It would be a powerful tool if someone compiled a head-to-head ranking system that incorporated all tournament matches with Pro tournaments including qualies, College matches, ITF and USTA.

Questionable said...

I know he won the NCAA's but was Britton worthy? He has'nt done a thing in the pros even at the futures level. The U.S.T.A. does not automatiaclly give the college champ a wildcard so why did he get it with his track record in pro tournaments. Just curious about that selection.

AR Hacked Off said...

Britton got a WC because he was an American who won the NCAA's.
Hope he has a good showing on his initial shots on the pro tour.

Eric Amend said...

Let's see...

Britton qualified and reached the finals of the 2008 Jr. US Open.

Won the NCAA Singles as a Freshmen.

Won the G1 Roehampton grass court tournament the week before Jr. Wimbledon.

Lost in the Semi-finals of Jr. Wimbledon

Beat Domijan in both grass court tournaments.

I'd say he earned his WC!!

Questionable said...

Eric Amend, Read my post. I said he has done nothing in pro tournaments and has had ample chances to at least pick up some points. He has not even won a couple of rds. in low level futures anywhere. You are stating his big win as Alex Domijan. What has Domijan done at the pro level. The accomplishments you are talking about are all in junior tournaments when he is in his last year of junior eligibility and most of the other good juniors in that age group have gone on to the pros and did not play those tournaments. The NCAA's was a great accomplishment where he got hot at the right time but I don't think anyone for even a second thinks he was one of the top college players through out the year. He wasn't even no. 1 on his team. A qualies wildcard should have been sufficient for what he has done.

earned it said...

Questionable

Devin has done well at the two biggest tournaments he could play: US Open Jrs.(finals) and NCAA Tournament (won). He is the youngest player to win the NCAA Tournament. He definitely deserves a chance ahead of the Kalamazoo winner. Chase Buchanan played in the bottom of his college team. Both these players will have successful careers if they continue to work hard.

Brian Urlacher said...

Devin definitely should have gotten the wildcard. The NCAA's Men's Champion has always been awarded a main draw wildcard at the US Open. And Devin did it as a Freshman. Jared Palmer won NCAA's playing #3 on his team and he got to #1 in the world in doubles and #30 in singles. It doesn't matter where you play on your team, it matters if you win the NCAA singles tournaments as an American.

Lead us the way Jay Cutler!

Turn The Ship Around said...

What an extreme shame what happened to Donald Young. It didn't seem like he was close to getting a wildcard into the US Open. He looks out of shape and has no confidence. It's amazing how his parents (his coaches) let this get so out-of-hand.


This just shows that: "Hard Work beats Talent, when Talent doesn't Work Hard"

Midwest Team Player said...

Would someone please fill us in on this "spitting incident" at the Champaign, ILL Team Championships? I was actually there and didn't hear anything about it. Comments are referring to this incident on this post.

The only player-umpire incident that I saw was during the Bo Seal-Harry Fowler match Fowler got into some ugly arguments with the umpire and the umpire gave him a penalty point. Was there some spitting going on in that match?

Ironically, it was Seal who then got into the ugly loud argument with the umpire a few days later at Kalamazoo and he ended up leaving the match but I couldn't tell if this was a voluntary or involuntary withdrawal.

The only other funny incident that happened at the Team Championships in Champaign was when the New England Team paid two waitresses from Hooters Restaurant to deliver a cake to cheer up a depressed Pacific Northwest Player at his hotel room. I can't imagine his surprise when he got the cake and also saw about 50 other players outside his room who witnessed the cake delivery.

remember last year said...

When Britton was barely on the USTA's radar. They didn't originally offer him a WC out of the 14 potential ones. 8 for the Main Draw & 6 for the Qualifying. He only got the qualifying WC after Krajicek pulled out. I personally think that an American NCAA singles champion should always receive a WC. The NCAAs has a deeper field than the 18s. I think you can debate whether or not Devin could benefit from another season of college tennis, but I certainly wish him the best of luck

Quasimodo said...

re comments of "the dude" and "midwest": if you remove the references to the usta (which distract from the argument and are not needed), i would say the dude really did a great job of analyzing the whole conundrum of identifying tennis talent. almost everybody focuses on results at every age. it's hard not to. in the younger age groups the results in relation to touring professional potential are meaningless. i fully agree regarding fully supporting the kids at older ages, and it might even be older than suggested, and not using the money on the younger kids where there are just too many variables to make a reasonable prediction. you are spot on on the issue of weapons. because of the physical maturity issue with boys, you have no idea how effective their serves are going to be until they are 18 or 19. since the serve is probably the biggest single weapon a male player can have, this is obviously crucial. once everyone has fully mature serves, you have a better idea of who will have that weapon. as they fully mature, the power and consistency of the other weapons such as the forehand overcome the advantage of making balls at younger ages. i suppose you could guess at the kids with the biggest serves and groundies at 16 or 17 and extrapolate, but why not wait until 18 or 19, and then you know.
midwest, regarding the alleged spitter, i would suggest you talk to the referees and umpires to find out what, if anything, really happened. my guess is you are half right in your speculation.

Curious said...

Quasimodo, I'm not seeing the dude's comments, where are they?

Quasimodo said...

Curious: Sorry about that. The Dude posted at the end of the Monday thread, "Other National Champions and an In-depth look...."

boyswillbeboys said...

Fowler's match with Sock is probably the match in question. To get to this level, these young men have to be very competitive with significant emotion invested. It would be odd NOT to feel frustration at bad luck, calls you don't agree with, your own level of play or your opponents level of play when you are competing hard for every point. Andy Roddick often continues a running argument with chair umpires through consecutive changeovers. Roger Federer broke a racket this spring in Miami. Boys spit all the time. It's gross, but that's just something they do. If the spitting in question was considered particularly egregious there would have been serious consequences and I don't believe there were. It may not be ideal, but it's no big deal.

Quasimodo said...

boyswillbeboys, your junior davis cup analysis was spot on. we send these kids to "boot camp" at camp pendleton and we want them to "battle" and at the same time we expect them to behave like choir boys. we detested the behavior of jimmy connors and john mcenroe and then we complained that sampras had no personality. it seems we always want to have it both ways. perhaps federer and nadal have spoiled us. although, as you mentioned, federer smashed a racket in miami. bottom line: let's give these kids a break.