USTA Announces 7 of 8 Men's US Open Wild Cards; Tournaments for Main Draw WC and Qualifying WC Begin Thursday; McHale Beats Wozniacki

The USTA announced the men's wild cards for the US Open this morning, with five Americans among the seven named. Ryan Harrison, Robby Ginepri, Donald Young, Steve Johnson and Jack Sock will play in the main draw in New York, as will Lleyton Hewitt and Julien Benneteau, who received the reciprocal wild cards given to Australia and France. The eighth wild card will be determined this weekend in College Park, Md., in an eight-player single-elimination tournament. The women's US Open wild cards are scheduled to be announced on Thursday.

The men's qualifying wild cards were given to: Mitchell Frank, Bjorn Fratangelo, Marcos Giron, Bradley Klahn, Dan Kosakowski, Denis Kudla, Tennys Sandgren and Rhyne Williams. Seven of these eight will be playing in tomorrow's wild card tournament, with Marcos Giron the only player not going to College Park. Instead, Bobby Reynolds will be the eighth player, and the No. 1 seed. He will play Klahn(8), Kudla(2) will play Fratangelo(7), Kosakowski will play Frank(6), and in a rematch of the NCAA semifinals this year, Sandgren(4) will play Williams(5).

Speaking of Sandgren, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported yesterday that Sandgren is likely to turn pro. You don't have to read between the lines much to get the impression Tennessee head coach Sam Winterbotham isn't exactly enthusiastic about that decision.

Donald Young, originally announced as a participant, will obviously not play now that he has been given a main draw wild card.

In the women's event, three of the women originally announced are not in the draw: Jamie Hampton, Alison Riske and Alexa Glatch. Glatch played doubles today Cincinnati, which may account for her withdrawal, but it could be that Hampton, Riske and Glatch were all given, like Young, main draw wild cards. The eight women and their seedings are: Julia Cohen(1), Ashley Weinhold(2), Gail Brodsky(3), Ahsha Rolle(4), Beatrice Capra(5), Jessica Pegula(6), Madison Keys(7) and Nicole Gibbs(8).

TennisMaryland will be covering the tournament and the order of play can be found on that website. They also have a twitter account: @TennisMaryland. Steve Pratt is the media relations contact for the USTA, and he will be tweeting scores from the @usta account.

Also beginning tomorrow is the US Open National Playoffs, which is for a wild card into qualifying for the winners of the men's and women's tournaments. The fields were decided earlier this summer in sectional events all over the country, leading to this weekend, when all 32 players will be in New Haven, Conn. for the finals. Former Arkansas All-American Blake Strode, who won the men's event last year, is the top seed, with David Martin No. 2. Jackson Withrow, who just won a main draw USO doubles wild card here in Kalamazoo, is in the field, as is Eric Quigley, the University of Kentucky All-American. Two of the sectional winners, Pacific Northwest's Alexander Vlaski and Texas' Artem Baradach are not playing, with the finalist in those tournaments taking their place in the draw. Cecil Mamiit, last year's finalist, is not seeded, having spent the past year primarily serving as a hitting partner for Maria Sharapova, and Nathan Healey is also a dangerous unseeded player. He plays Quigley in the first round Thursday.

Marie-Eve Pelletier of Canada is the No. 1 seed in the women's draw, with former UCLA All-American Yasmin Schnack seeded No. 2. Skylar Morton, Caroline Dailey and Robin Anderson are prominent US juniors competing.

For draws and the order of play, see usopen.org.



The big news from the Cincinnati Masters today was Christina's McHale's 6-4, 7-5 win over world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki. It was the 19-year-old McHale's first WTA Top Five victory. She will play veteran Nadia Petrova of Russia on Thursday. For more on McHale's win, see the tournament's website and the WTA website.