When the main singles draw of the 2009 LA Tennis Open kicks off at the Los Angeles Tennis Center today, a casual tennis fan may look at a list of the players competing and not recognize a single name.
Popular tennis juggernauts such as Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are all noticeably absent from the event that counts Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Boris Becker among its past winners.
However, tournament director Bob Kramer explained that just because there are few big-name competitors, this year’s competition will not be any less enthralling.
Director of facilities Mike Davis agrees.
“That’s the thing that people don’t realize ““ that even though you may not have the big names like Roddick, Federer or Nadal, the field’s strong,” Davis said. “That was the thing with (Juan Martin) Del Potro. He came last year, and no one knew who this guy was. Then he came out, and he won the tournament. Now everyone’s asking, “˜Where’s Del Potro?'”
For Del Potro, the tournament’s defending champion and currently the No. 6 player in the world, this tournament served as a showcase for his talent. The 2008 tournament came right in the middle of one of the hottest streaks in ATP history and helped vault the young Argentine from relative anonymity to superstar status.
It was the third in a series of four consecutive ATP tour events won by Del Potro, making him the first player to ever win four ATP tour titles in four straight tries.
Unfortunately for the tournament and its fans, Del Potro will not be participating in this year’s LA Tennis Open, adding him to the seemingly endless list of marquee names that decided not to make the journey to Westwood.
“The players have their different schedules,” Davis said. “It’s just tough to get the players if they don’t want to come since they have their own individual mindsets.”
The highest-ranked singles player competing in the event is No. 20 Tommy Haas of Germany, who won the tournament in 2004 and 2006.
Mardy Fish, Marat Safin and Marcos Baghdatis are also participating, but the latter two have fallen off quite a bit from their prime form. Safin, a former US Open and Australian Open champion and world No. 1, is now ranked 54th, and Baghdatis barely cracks the top 150. Fish, though very talented, is still struggling to get out from under the shadows of Roddick and James Blake.
What appears as a lack of big names to observers surely looks like a window of opportunity for the less renowned players taking part in this competition. Each has a chance to be this year’s Del Potro, the player who enters the tournament as a relative unknown and emerges with an ATP title under his belt.
The leading candidates for this role would be Israel’s Dudi Sela, currently ranked No. 29, and American Sam Querrey, ranked No. 34.
The 24-year-old Sela is in the midst of a landmark year in his career and is quickly becoming one of Israel’s premier athletes. He became the first Israeli to reach the fourth round of Wimbledon, and he later helped his homeland reach its first ever Davis Cup semifinal by defeating Mikhail Youzhny in Israel’s 4-1 upset win over Russia.
Querrey, a 21-year-old from Thousand Oaks, has been hailed as the next great American tennis player but has advanced to only three ATP singles finals in his career, winning one. The 2009 LA Tennis Open is the perfect opportunity for him to surface as a legitimate ATP contender.
Who knows? Maybe Querrey or Sela can start their own Del Potro-esque run to a top-10 ranking. And if they do, it will be interesting to see if they return to Westwood for next year’s tournament.
If you think Marcos Baghdatis can come back from the dead, e-mail Khayat at dkhayat@media.ucla.edu.