US Open Draws Released; Rain Disrupts Second Round of Qualifying

The draw show on ESPN was no help, and the less said about it the better, but once the US Open draws were posted on usopen.org this afternoon, there was a chance to start anticipating some of the first round matches next week.

Unlike years past, when Devin Britton drew Roger Federer (2009) and Chelsey Gullickson drew Caroline Wozniacki (2010), no sure-fire Arthur Ashe-worthy matches were drawn for the junior and college players this year. Current NCAA champion Steve Johnson will meet Alex Bogomolov, whom, I learned in this recent interview
, he did not know until last month. The two were put together as a wild card doubles team in Cincinnati, and reached the quarterfinals there last week, beating the Roland Garros champions Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor in the second round. Any element of surprise Johnson may have had as an unknown wild card won't be present against Bogomolov now.

Kalamazoo champion Jack Sock will not get his wished-for rematch with Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland, who is still in qualifying, but his draw of Marc Gicquel of France, currently ranked No. 96, isn't a bad one. If Sock were to win that, he would likely face No. 21 seed Andy Roddick, who plays Michael Russell in the first round.

Ryan Harrison plays No. 27 seed Marin Cilic of Croatia in the opening round, while his potential 2nd round opponent, 18-year-old Australian Bernard Tomic, faces a qualifier.

Johnson, Sock and Harrison are three of the six US wild cards. Donald Young and Robby Ginepri drew qualifiers, while Bobby Reynolds, who won the US Open wild card playoff, will face David Nalbandian of Argentina.

On the women's side, Lauren Davis, the National 18s champion, drew Angelique Kerber of Germany, with Sloane Stephens, who also received a wild card, getting a qualifier. Madison Keys, the 16-year-old winner of the wild card tournament, will play 37-year-old wild card Jill Craybas in her main draw grand slam debut. Former Georgia Tech star Irina Falconi plays Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic.

The women's draws are here and the men's draws are here at usopen.org.

Today's second round of qualifying had barely gotten underway when rain began falling in New York, and it was nearly six hours before play resumed. Many of the matches scheduled for later were cancelled, and there are still ten matches on the courts as of 10:30 p.m. Michael Yani, Rajeev Ram, Taylor Townsend and Chichi Scholl were among those whose second round matches were cancelled.

Bradley Klahn advanced to the final round of qualifying with a 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3 win over No. 14 seed Matthew Ebden of Australia. Klahn served for the match at 5-4 in the second set, but never got to match point. In the third set, the 2010 NCAA champion from Stanford got a break with Ebden serving at 2-3 and this time he held on to it. He will play unseeded Frank Dancevic of Canada in the third and final round of qualifying.

It was a good day for Pac-10 players current and former. In addition to Klahn, USC's Robert Farah(COL) advanced to the third round, with a 6-2, 6-0 win over former Pepperdine star Andre Begemann, and former Cal Bear Conor Niland (IRL) defeated former ITF world junior champion Tsung-Hua Yang of Taiwan 6-2, 6-3.

Rhyne Williams fell in straight sets to Guillaume Rufin of France 6-2, 7-5 and Blake Strode also lost to a French player. Jonathan Dasnieres de Veigy beat the National Playoff winner 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-1.

Ashley Weinhold lost to former Wimbledon girls champion Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand in two tiebreaks, while Jessica Pegula lost to No. 4 seed Edina Gallovits-Hall of Romania 6-4, 6-4.

Mitchell Frank, Denis Kudla and Greg Ouellette were still on the court as of this posting.

Due to the threat of hurricane Irene arriving on Saturday, the schedule for Friday calls for those who did not play today to play two matches on Friday.

Qualifying draws are available at usopen.org