qualifying wrap

The main draw

To summarize the quallies a little...  the second day of quallies ended up being ended by rain just like the first, but more frustratingly. In this case skies were actually starting to clear, but just enough rain spat down that it would have been necessary to dry the courts ins read of just drying the lines for play to resume, and in the quallies you don't do that after dark like you might on a show court during the main draw with 20,000 tickets sold. I could see a star or two as I walked to the Lemon Ice King of Corona. While I got one full day of good weather on Thursday, Friday I got to the tourney two hours late missing a first match because I had to leave my desk clean of some things with a long trip starting the next morning.  Because of the rain, play extended into a fifth day, I could not do the same because of my trip, so I missed following some people into their third round matches.  Nor did I stay until the final point was played on Friday  

It was a good year for my viewing. Jerzy Janowicz, Bernard Tomic, Ricardas Berankis and Ryan Harrison are at least four players whom I am happy to say I saw in person. We will check back in a year or two on that.    

I am typing this on an airplane at 8am EDT on the second day of the US Open.  I could have checked the first day scores before getting on the plane but did not.  By the time I get caught up with the world after landing in Australia the second day of play will be complete. 

Luck has its place in this as in all things. The overall tournament draw is done during the qualifying, with 16 "q" balls. After the qualifying names are drawn to attach a qualifier to each Many years there will be at least one q-q first round match where two qualifiers play one another, guaranteeing at least one of them a second round berth. No such luck this hear, all 16 mens qualifiers could be gone after the first round. Adreas Haider-Maurer had the worst luck, drawing the #5 seed Robin Soderling and has essentially no chance of advancing. Ryan Harrison has go face the #15 seed Ivan Ljubicic and could put up a stiff fight.  If Harrison can make it past Ljubicic he could make it as far as Rafael Nadal in the round of sixteen based on his draw in the next rounds.  And if he can do that his ranking would rise so quickly...   The talented Lithuanian Berankis has the best draw, maybe, facing an American wild card entrant Ryan Sweeting. He can win that easy. The boring French player Marc Gicquel also has a decent first round match against Thiemo de Bakker. 

So we shall see...

(I am posting this a little later, and will update on how my above prognostications proved out...)

The Open continues to have a reasonable security policy as post 9-11 things go, which I can't say of a lot of other places. Which I appreciate. 

And I do love going. I hated to leave. WorldCon is in Reno next year, whatever the dates I won't go, so I can look forward to being back in a year for e entirety, based on my current known knowns.

And the Lemon Ice King of Corona really is good!!