Who to look out for in U.S. Open qualifying
By Joey Dillon
The IX: Tennis Tuesday with Joey Dillon, Aug. 20, 2024
Howdy, y’all, and Happy Tennis Tuesday! As we gear up for the final Grand Slam of the year next week, it’s time for me to give you a few names in the qualifying draw that you need to keep an eye out on or possibly make a deep run in the main draw. The U.S. Open is special because of not only their Fan Week leading up, but they offer free viewing for qualifying and stream their matches/offer quick highlights. If you are in the New York City area, I definitely recommend checking it out. Who knows, you might be able to see the next Emma Raducanu storm their way to the title in a few weeks.
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Top seed: Kamilla Rakhimova
Historically, the top seed in qualifying is a player that finds themselves in fantastic form following a deep run, but was just screwed over by the main draw cutoff being six weeks prior. Currently, Kamilla Rakhimova is inside the Top 100 at No. 94, but her form hasn’t been too stellar as of late. In fact, you could even argue that her ranking is slightly inflated as she has runner-up points from the WTA 125 in Stanford last year coming off this week. She’s been ranked as high as No. 65 in the world and has a big game to challenge a lot of the best, which we saw last month when she lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the second round of the Mubadala DC Citi Open in a three-set epic. However, the following week she lost to Texas A&M player Mary Stoiana in the first round of the $100k ITF World Tour event in Landisville and then last week to Harriet Dart in Cincinnati. While she’s on a small losing skid, her last four losses have all come in three sets and she has a decent draw to qualify.
Ena Shibahara
I usually love when a doubles specialist plays singles and then does really well. Ena Shibahara is kind of an exception because she doesn’t want to only be playing doubles. The 26-year-old ended 2023 ranked No. 14 after peaking at No. 4 the year prior and this year made the decision to step back a little from doubles and go back down to ITF World Tour events to build up her singles ranking. She’s still in the Top 60 as she plays at the bigger events, but this year alone she’s played in 14 singles tournaments, including qualifying for two WTA main draws. In February, she won her first professional singles title at the W35 in Spring, Texas but also reached the final of a W100 in Tokyo. As a result, she’s cut her ranking in half and finds herself in singles qualifying at a Grand Slam for the first time.
Robin Montgomery
Remember what I said about a player in form being seeded because of the cutoff? Well, 19-year-old Robin Montgomery sits just outside the Top 100 and didn’t receive a main draw wildcard simply because of the reciprocal trades the USTA has with France and Australia, on top of Amanda Anisimova winning the USTA points challenge and Iva Jovic winning the U18 Nationals. The big server from the DMV has had a great summer, making the quarterfinals in her hometown tournament of Washington DC and then qualifying for Cincinnati last week. She also came off of qualifying and winning her first Grand Slam main draw match at Wimbledon. The No. 6 seed should find herself in the main draw off of her form alone, but Kayla Day and Emiliana Arango are in Montgomery’s section that could put a stop to that. Still, I would love Montgomery to silence the USTA for not giving her a wildcard with a deep run.
Next week, we’ll discuss the main draw and how it could unfold. Now, onto links!
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
Aryna Sabalenka defeated Jessica Pegula to win her first Cincinnati Open title, giving her some solid momentum to win her second Grand Slam of the year. Erin Routliffe and Asia Muhammad teamed up to take home the doubles title in their first tournament as a pair, beating Yulia Putintseva and Leylah Fernandez in the final. Muhammad also had one of the craziest wardrobe malfunctions I’ve ever seen with her shoe and sock falling off mid-point earlier in the week.
At the WTA 125 Barranquilla Open, Nadia Podoroska outlasted Tatjana Maria to win her third career title at that level. The last-minute doubles alternate pairing of Jessica Failla and Hiroko Kuwata upset No.1 seeds Quinn Gleason and Ingrid Martins to win the biggest title of their career.
Former World No. 37 Alison Van Uytvanck, who was one of the most visible out queer players on the WTA tour, announced her retirement from tennis, citing the motivation and injuries as the main reasons behind the decision.
Demi Schuurs may not have been able to capture an Olympic medal, but she was able to get a match-worn shirt by Rafael Nadal — which is nearly just as dope.
Donna Vekic is playing some of the best tennis of her career and the Olympic silver medalist adding Pam Shriver to her team could be the exact catalyst behind it.
Alexa Noel is forgoing her final year at the University of Miami and turning professional at the U.S. Open, while other college players will have to give up a lot of their tournament winnings to keep their collegiate eligibility.
While Cincinnati continues to upgrade their tournament, Cleveland is starting to find momentum themselves on the tennis calendar.
Former WTA President Micky Lawler was named as Comissioner of Unrivaled, a new 3×3 women’s basketball league co-founded Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.
Congratulations to Martina Navratilova, who announced she and her wife have adopted two boys to add to their family.
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Five at The IX: U.S. Open Media Conference
Q. I have a question about the winner last year, Coco Gauff. Since this, have you seen the Coco effect coming with young black tennis players coming to clubs? Have you seen a consequence of Coco’s title on American tennis?
LEW SHERR: Look, we are hugely excited about what Coco Gauff brings to the sport of tennis. She has energized fans around the world. She has energized American kids, white and players of color.
The U.S. is a bit different. I will say while Coco’s celebrity is now on par with many of the top athletes, I think you saw the beginning of the Olympics, she was paired with LeBron James bearing the flag for the American team.
Here in the United States, I think the impact of athletic performance maybe is a little different than what you might see in other countries. Emma Raducanu winning the U.S. Open had a big impact on that nation. We’ve had tremendous athletes of color, Venus Williams, Serena Williams. We’re very proud of the legacy in our sport. Frances Tiafoe as well on the men’s side. Starting with the building we’re in, Arthur Ashe Stadium. There’s a tremendous history here in our country.
More importantly, we’re excited about all of the young Americans. Having American players performing at the top of the sport inspires people to want to play, but we also know that American kids are energized by Carlos, by Iga.
One of the great things about the U.S. Open, we can showcase the best players in the world for all of our fans. As Stacey mentioned, particularly during Fan Week, we give them an opportunity to get up close in a way you never could at another event.
Q. Basically just wanted to ask, probably more a question for Stacey, I just wanted to ask if you still have confidence in the electronic line calling system. Obviously there’s been a couple of issues the last few weeks for that in relation to the match with Frances and Taylor last night. What contingencies are in place as a tournament if there are problems with the system?
STACEY ALLASTER: There’s certainly a redundancy system built into automated line calling, number one. If the system were to go down, we still could do it the old-fashioned way and have the chair umpire call.
We have a significant amount of confidence in the system. We introduced automated line calling in 2020. We have not had any major issues in the past.
So it’s a technology system. It’s 98% correct. We do know previously when we used line umpires, the line umpires were 75%. With any technology there could be a few glitches, but we have a lot of confidence in the system.
Q. Every year the players talk about the speed of the court. My question is, how fast is the court playing this year? Who decides that? What are the factors that go into that decision?
STACEY ALLASTER: I’ll take that one.
We aim for the court pace rating to be medium fast. Medium fast, per the ITF, is anywhere from 41 to 44. All 17 courts have been resurfaced. The average CPR right now is 42. It’s where we like it to be at the start of the tournament so that as we ease into it, it gets closer to the end.
We take feedback from players. We take feedback from player development. We know that that speed of court gives us that right balance with the style of play. It’s been successful.
That’s what goes into those decisions and where we sit today as we get ready for the first balls to be hit.
Q. It is very important for me to hear that you guys are talking about ethical, social responsibility and community. What kind of plans more specific about helping the communities and the neighborhoods around the U.S. Open, Corona, Flushing, that after the pandemic are suffering a lot of health problems, the deterioration of the quality of life?
LEW SHERR: Thank you for the question. It’s an important one.
Look, we are an organization that, as Brian mentioned, is focused on a purpose. That purpose links improving individual health and strengthening and improving communities, right? I think that goes right to your question.
This event is played here every year. All of the funds generated off this event are reinvested back into growing the sport. A portion of that growing the sport is court refurbishments, parks and rec, supporting after-school programs through our foundation.
We’re heavily involved in the Queens community. Additionally, when the lights turn off during the U.S. Open, this facility is a public park, right? Our courts are accessible to the public. Brian is a local resident. I’m in Florida. I think you can probably speak to this. These are some of the least expensive courts you can play on in New York City. That’s by design. We run camps for kids and things like that.
Fan Week itself is geared to be an invitation to the Queens community in particular to come out and participate. There’s actually a Queens Day within Fan Week.
Having an impact in this community is important. I’ll separate that from the economic impact of the event, which for New York generates more than $1.2 billion of economic activity around the so U.S. Open.
The city certainly benefits from that, Queens benefits from that, the city also benefits from their portion of the revenues that are generated through this event.
I think the operation of this facility as a park and the reinvestments that we make back into court refurbishments, school program, our national junior tennis and learning programs, after-school programs, which again are all represented here in Queens as well.
Q. As you’ll know, our national hard court championships just finished. The winners in Kalamazoo and San Diego received wild cards into the main draw of the U.S. Open. As happens every year, there’s a lot of conversation around will the kids take the money, will they maintain their NCAA eligibility. My question is, if the players opt out of accepting the money to maintain their eligibility to play in college, what happens to that money?
STACEY ALLASTER: Right now the money just goes back into the big expense budget of the U.S. Open. Dr. Hainline can speak to NCAA rules. We have been speaking to the NCAA, if that money could be set aside against some of their expenses. I don’t have resolution on that today, but we have been speaking to the NCAA about doing that.
I should also note that these athletes also get a lot of support from our player development. That definitely goes into the conversation, as well.
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