Notes on a Draw Sheet

Of real US Open contenders and old New Haven
Plus: WTA Championships, age eligibility, Agassi-Graf child actor

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Fred Mullane/Camerawork USA

No matter his seeding, Moya doesn't have a realistic shot at the US Open title.

Take a quick look at the men's Top 10 and tell us who other than Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt have serious chances to win the US Open? Tim Henman is a very dark horse and he's it.

Please don't mention Carlos Moya. One would be better off gazing at the men ranked 11-30 to find some quarter-to semifinalists like Olympic heroes Nico Massu, Mardy Fish, Taylor Dent, Fernando Gonzalez, Marat Safin and Nicolas Kiefer.

Except for Davis Cup, this has not been a good years for the Bryan Bros., who need to make a strong stand in NY. And by the way, it was tough not to notice that the Olympic men's dubs final was contested by four strong singles player: gold medallists Massu and Gonzalez plus Germans Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler. … The big Bronx Classic Challenger usually recruits a decent US field but the American men were nowhere to be found by the quarters last week. France's talented Julian Jeanpierre won the title. … Long Island has a flavorful field this week with Hewitt (who's in danger of overplaying), Mario Ancic and Joachim Johannson, among others. The most noteworthy absence is James Blake, who's suffering from a strange virus that's affecting his jaw. He should show up for the Open, though. … Jan-Mike Gambill said after his first round win in L.I. over Richard Gasquet that most of his slump is related to injuries. Who is he kidding? Andre Agassi says that 6-foot-3 Gilles Muller, who upset him in Washington last week, has a load of talent. Muller just missed the cut off for the US Open main draw and will be forced to qualify this week as the No. 2 seed. Believe it or not, former Top-5 player Nicolas Lapentti is in the qualies. Americans to watch include Donald "Very, Very" Young, Justine Gimelstob and Alex Kuznetsov.

TR.net reported back in June that the WTA Tour was considering returning the Championships to LA's Staples Center for 2005 and, on Monday Dan Kaplan wrote in Sport Business Journal that it will indeed occur. A WTA source confirmed this on Wednesday. Attendance at the event was up last year.

A WTA source also says that the Tour's age eligibility rule will have few changes when it's amended version is released at the US Open. Fourteen- and 15-year-olds will essentially be held under the same restrictions, but 16- and 17-year-olds will get to add a tournament o two. … 15-year-old and Vancouver champ Nicole Vaidisova will try and qualify for the US Open, while at the same time trying to lead the World TeamTennis Sacramento Capitals to victory at the US Open site on Friday and Saturday.

SAY IT STRAIGHT IN NEW HAVEN
For most reports, the WTA Tour stop in New Haven is a great success. But can the reporters from what they describe as the "Elm City" (I don't remember any elms there, only great mounds of trash in the parking lot of the New Haven Coliseum) stop kissing tournament director's Anne Worcester's behind every time they write. For goodness sakes, the woman is frequently spinning and the local reporters eat up anything she says without fact checking. It was obvious in July that Worcester was just trying to sell tickets when she said that Monica Seles might play her event, but the reporters printed her comments anyway without fact checking.

Now here comes this doozy yesterday about Lindsay Davenport's New Haven pullout. "I believe that Lindsay had every intention of playing Pilot Pen when she entered Cincinnati," Worcester said. "I obviously wish she had not entered Cincinnati. I know she loves this tournament and she has a lot of friends on our staff and from what I understand she's very emotional right now and probably feels worse than we do."

No, Anne, she did not have every intention of playing. In fact, she had no real intention of playing when she took a wildcard into Cincy, signaling to the entire world that she wanted a few more matches before the US Open, but didn't' want to risk playing the week before the Open. There was no other reason for her to take that wild card other than a change of mind about scheduling.

That move was indicative of Davenport's philosophy of how to properly deal with her bad knee: take time off before a grueling Slam; pay close attention to her upcoming schedule and be willing to make changes when they were necessary. She pulled out of New Haven with tendonitis in her left wrist, a condition she can always use for a pull-out. How much you want to bet on Sunday that she says her wrist is "feeling great."

Give Worcester credit, though, she assembles a fine field in one of Connecticut's least attractive cities. Other than "The Whale" Yale and a few slivers of the Long Island Sound, there's not much to see or do there. What Osborn doesn't know is that "back in the day" yours truly once had his brand new down's jacket ripped off there at a New year's Eve bash featuring "The Plasmatics." I blamed it on the lead guitarist, who had locked in waiting for him to smash apart a TV.

However, another Connecticut native, my colleague Richard Osborn at Inside Tennis, reminds me that Toad's Place still rocks. My TR.net partner, Ron Cioffi – another Connecticut Nutmegger who was the rock columnist for The Connecticut Post, calls Toad's Place the hottest club and New Haven one of his favorite cities in the state. … Oh, well.

The popcorn match of the day in New Haven is Jen Capriati v. Tatiana Golovin. If Maria Sharapova doesn't win the tournament, forget about her chances at the Open.

Child actor Connor Hance and "dad" Andre Agassi.

WHO IS THAT KID?
The name of the "Agassi kid" in the Genworth Financial commercial with Taylor Dent is Connor Hance, who stars as Agassi and Steffi Graf's son. He lives in Torrance, Calif., and plays at the South Bay Tennis Center, where his father, Ken, and mother, Courtney, run the tennis program. "Everybody thinks I'm really their son, but I'm not," Hance, 5, notes on his web site, www.thetenniskid.com.

"I loved doing the commercial. I got to meet Taylor Dent and rally with him." Connor met with Agassi at the Mercedes-Benz Cup at UCLA in July and plans to attend the US Open with his father.

Tennis fans around the world have wondered since Jaden was born two-and-a-half years ago how well much of the talent of his parents, winners of 30 Slams, would be passed down. Steffi and Andre also have a 10-month-old daughter, Jaz.

Genworth Financial is the first company spun off by General Electric in the firm’s 127-year history. An advertising art director who had played tennis in college came up with the concept to portray how the famed GE brand could be passed down to a new company, said Genworth Senior Vice President Chris Matthews.

The commercial begins with Dent starting a lesson by patty-caking a ball to Hance. The kid clocks the ball. Another easy shot from Dent, another screamer from the boy. The child gives Dent a little stuck-out-tongue action. Then, the music kicks in and the pair begin a 20-point rally of blazing ground strokes and fleet-footed gets. When Dent puts away the point with an overhead, he raises his arms like … well … he just won Wimbledon.