FROM THE SAP OPEN IN SAN JOSE - The
problem with holding three ATP tournaments in a week has everything to
do with field dilution, and when the events suffer a string of early upsets,
it's not easy to sell walk up tickets to the weekend matches.
That's what the SAP Open in San Jose could facing in a few days time if
top seed Andy Roddick and No. 2 Fernando Verdasco don't survive until
the final. On Wednesday, the event lost two name players, titleholder
Radek Stepanek and fourth seed Tommy Haas, as the Czech went down to Xavier
Malisse (6-3, 6-4 and the German fell to Denis Istomin 7-6(3), 6-2. Fifth
seed Tomas Berdych did overcome Jarkko Nieminen (Finland) 6-3 6-2 and
No. 6 Philipp Kohlschreiber beat Dudi Sela 6-2, 6-0, but the Bryan Brothers,
another top drawing card, also went down in the doubles, leaving the 250-level
tournament with only three players that it might be able to market: Roddick,
Verdasco and Sam Querrey.
Querrey has a tough match against Taylor Dent coming up, Roddick still
isn't sure how his right arm will hold up with his nerve injury and while
Verdasco had a spectacular 2009 Aussie Open and is a Davis Cup hero, he's
not that well known in the US.
Rotterdam, which is an ATP 500 tournament, has a decent field with Novak
Djokovic, Marcos Baghdatis, Nikolay Davydenko, Gael Monfils and Robin
Soderling, but without Federer Nadal and Murray playing this week, it's
still a tough sell. Costa do Sauipe, Brazil has the advantage of being
played at beautiful resort, but it's hard to for fans to get overly excited
about Albert Montanes, JC Ferro and Igor Andreev.
The challenge for the tournaments is to find a way to promote the players
they have prior to the tournament, but with the overall lack of coverage
of the sport in the U.S. outside of the Slams (and the Australia Open
doesn't receive a huge amount of coverage anyway due to the NFL playoffs)
and the shrinking number of reporters at the tournaments due to the decline
of the newspaper industry, it gets tougher and tougher to get publicity.
So when a tournament like San Jose is already without Americans James
Blake (who lost in Rotterdam to the Bag Man) and John Isner (who decided
not to play because of a strenuous January) and then loses some its mid-level
names like Stepanek, Haas and Mardy Fish, the rest of the week is bound
to be a struggle, especially if the top two seeds go out. But San Jose
is not there yet and officials will cross it fingers that its players
like Stepanek won't be flat like he was in his 6-3, 6-4 loss to Xavier
Malisse, and that players such as Haas will wake up when necessary. According
to Istomin, Haas really wasn't there, letting go of five sets points,
somewhat to big serving by the man from Uzbekistan. "I felt he wasn't
at his best and he was playing at 20% of game," the 96-ranked Istomin
said. "In the second set he was playing just to be on court. But
it was my best win and I'm happy of course.”
Roddick did push his way past Ryler DeHeart 6-1, 7-6, coming back from
3-5 down in the second set when the former Illini standout missed an easy
forehand and banged his racket in frustration. Roddick didn’t have
too play great to get the win, only play smart and make sure to get enough
returns in play and vary his passing shots. The nerve injury that is coming
from his spine has calmed down and he’s traveling with chiropracter
this week.Roddick’s name has been tossed around quite a bit during
the past few days as his wife, Brooklyn Decker, is the
cover of the Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Roddick himself
has never been on the cover of the US’ most prestigious sports magazine,
which has something do with his lack of a Slam titles but more to do with
that SI doesn’t believe that tennis covers sell. But tennis players
wives can sell, as do women tennis players, as Ana Ivanovic is in this
issue of SI (just two pictures), and Maria Sharapova, Steffi Graf, Daniela
Hantuchova, Maria Kirilenko and Tatiana Golovin have all had their bodies
displayed in one swimsuit issue or another.
The top American and his wife had bet as to who would get on the SI cover
first. Had Roddick taken out Federer at Wimbledon, perhaps he would have
been top spouse. But Decker has been putting in long hours in the modeling
profession and presto, it was she who appeared on David Letterman on Tuesday
night.
“It’s a win for her in the household and something she’s
not going to let me forget,” Roddick said. “We didn’t
have anything on it fortunately. I knew I was going to have to do something
pretty special to get on it and I knew she was due. They cut my timeline
off a little.”
Roddick said that Decker wasn’t sure until the last minute that
she’s be the cover girl.
“It’s like the biggest guarded secret ever. They masked it
as another big casting she was going after and she walked in and she saw
the cover and all the SI people she worked with. It’s sort of like
“Punked” and they had all the cameras there. I got a text
from her saying this casting went horribly, I haven’t heard anything
yet you have to call me and I did and she played it off for about three
seconds and then she told me she got it and I said, ‘Thank you for
that panic attack.’”
Roddick has amazed watching the attention showered upon Decker. “It’s
been a blast to see. She’s been going after it for a long time and
her industry that’s as big as it gets. I’m not worried about
her she’s got good head on her shoulders. She told me she wanted
to lean on me a little because it’s sort of new for me and she asked
me what Letterman is like and I said he keeps the studio at 62 degrees
so wear something a bit warmer. But it’s a cool process for her.”
