Rogers Masters First Big US Open Lead-up Event

Hello, any readers,
Apologies for the nine-day silence, attributable in part to my having set out on vacation Saturday morning to a place with no internet access (I write to you now from a public library in Manzanita, Oregon). In the meantime, the Legg Mason Classic proved a tournament of upsets, well-represented in its surprise final between darkhorses David Nalbandian and Marcos Baghdatis. Tomas Berdych failed to impress, and the likes of Andy Roddick and Marin Cilic continued recent runs of dismal form. All-in-all, no clear frontrunner for the US Open Series and the Open itself has emerged as of yet.

That situation is likely to change this week, however, as we enter our first ATP Masters event of the summer in Canada. These next few days will see the full roll-call of top players reemerge at the same tournament for the first time since Wimbledon and offer the first major preview for the US Open, to be followed later by the Cincinnati Masters and then the Open itself. World's number one Rafael Nadal enters as top seed, though I would hesitate to name him a clear favorite to win the title in light of his relatively unimpressive hardcourt results thus far in 2010, while Roger Federer will be playing his first tournament seeded outside the top two in around seven years.

Early headlines have focused on the novel appearance of a Nadal/Djokovic doubles team, which will be the first such pairing of the world's first and second ranked singles players in over 20 years. The singles draw contains an exciting second-round clash between Robin Soderling and Ernests Gulbis, which is in progress as I write, a chance for Andy Roddick to avenge his latest Wimbledon heartbreaker when he faces Yen-Tsun Lu in his opener, and the potentially electrifying possibility of a Federer-Berdych Wimbledon rematch in the quarterfinals.

I'm off to follow the action now, but hope I can get back to you in the next couple days.
Stay well,
Cody Wendt.