US Open 2010 Men’s Singles Draw: Qualifying

photo credit:mbevis

The 2010 US Open men’s qualifying singles event begins today – Tuesday 24 August at 11am local time in New York. The qualifying event will be completed on Friday 27 August. The qualifying matches are best of 3 tie-break sets and NOT best of 5 sets like the main draw singles matches. The final set is NOT an advantage set so is decided by a tie-break at 6 games all, just like the final set in the main draw of this tournament.

There are 128 spots in the qualifying draw of which 9 were wild cards and 119 direct acceptances. There are 32 seeds in the qualifying which means that the highest 32 ranked players at the cut-off date are seeded to meet each other in “The Qualifying Round”. A seeded player occupies one of every 4 spots in the draw. There are 32 seeds in the qualifying which means that the highest 32 ranked players at the cut-off date are seeded to meet each other in “The Qualifying Round”.

The Qualifying Round is the round that decides which players qualify for the main draw, because the winner of that round qualifies. At the US Open there are 16 spots in the main draw of the men’s singles event allocated for qualifiers. OCA will be following theUS Open including the qualifying results, so visit here regularly and ask any questions you would like to know about this tournament or anything about tennis.

There are 20 American men in the qualifying draw, 3 seeded players, 8 direct acceptances and 9 wild cards in a strong show of support by the USTA for local players. The 9 wild cards went to: current World No.804 Steve Johnson, No.641 Blake Strode, No.730 Jarmere Jenkins, No.538 Jordan Cox, No.573 Alexander Domijan, No.352 Greg Ouellette, No.950 Chase Buchanan, No.559 Andrea Collarini and No.1,181 Johannes Robert Van Overbeek.

The players who lose in the 1st round of qualifying receive 3,000 US dollars that win through to the 2nd round of qualifying but are then defeated, earn $5,625 and 16 ATP ranking points. Players who win through to the 3rd round of qualifying but are then defeated, earn $8,000 and 24 ATP ranking points.

Both 2nd round and 3rd round losers in the qualifying receive more ranking points than a player who is directly accepted into the main draw and then loses his 1st round match (the direct acceptance would be awarded 10 ATP ranking points for losing in the 1st round of the main draw).

Players who qualify for the main draw will earn a minimum of $19,000 and 35 ATP ranking points if they are defeated in the 1st round of the main draw. That means they received 3.5 times the amount of points that a direct acceptance receives when he loses his 1st round match. Do you think that is a fair way to allocate points?

The seeds do not receive a BYE in the 1st round of the qualifying event. All players must win 3 matches in a row in order to qualify. The qualifying draws are different to main draws because these events do not play off until there is one undefeated player. Therefore, the No.1 seed and the No.2 seed are not separated at the opposite ends of the draw.

The Top 32 seeds in the main draw of qualifying have ALL been separated from each other as they are seeded to be the players who do qualify. All 32 seeds are just listed down the draw. The 32 seeds are bolded in the draw below.

Pictured above is 2009 US Open Men’s Singles Champion Juan Martin del Potro positioning himself in order to play this double handed backhand drive. The 21 year old from Argentina achieved his career high ranking of No.4 in January this year and did not play after the Australian Open that month.

Due to a right wrist injury that prevented him from playing the 1.98m del Potro decided to have surgery to fix the problem on May 4 this year. He has withdrawn from the US Open so cannot defend his title. Last year del Potro became the first player to defeat both Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in a Grand Slam singles event. We look forward to him returning to the ATP Tour.

The draw for the 2010 US Open Men’s qualifying singles event is:

(1) Marsel Ilhan versus Bernard Tomic
Steve Johnson v. Noam Okun
Alex Bogdanovic v. Blake Strode
Juan Pablo Brzezicki v. (23) Ivan Dodig
(2) Go Soeda v. Yuichi Sugita
Facundo Bagnis v. Jesse Witten
Attila Balazs v. Matteo Viola
Lukas Rosol v. (28) Rajeev Ram
(3) Karol Beck v. Marinko Matosevic
John Millman v. Evgeny Kirillov
Santiago Gonzalez v. Peter Polansky
Franco Skugor v. (18) Carlos Salamanca
(4) Edouard Roger-Vasselin v. Greg Jones
Daniel King-Turner v. Dusan Lojda
Andre Begemann v. Robert Farah
Jarmere Jenkins v. (17) Josselin Ouanna
(5) Simone Bolelli v. Andreas Haider-Maurer
Jerzy Janowicz v. Frederik Nielsen
Alex Kuznetsov v. Flavio Cipolla
Benjamin Balleret v. (21) Daniel Munoz-De La Nava
(6) Grega Zemlja v. Julio Silva
Alexandre Sidorenko v. Reda El Amrani
Matthew Ebden v. Nicolas Mahut
Jordan Cox v. (29) Uladzimir Ignatik
(7) Adrian Ungur v. Simone Vagnozzi
Ivan Sergeyev v. Vincent Millot
Pedro Clar-Rossello v. Daniele Giorgini
Martin Klizan v. (30) Izak Van Der Merwe
(8) David Guez v. Sergei Bubka
Harel Levy v. Lester Cook
Niels Desein v. Alex Bogmolov Jnr.
Milos Raonic v. (31) Mischa Zverev
(9) Ricardas Berankis v. Juan Sebastian Cabal
Bastian Knittel v. Alexander Domijan
Jesse Levine v. Caio Zampieri
Brydan Klein v. (25) Kevin Kim
(10) Rui Machado v. Nick Lindahl
Ryan Harrison v. Jonathan Dasnieres De Veigy
Ricardo Hocevar v. Greg Ouellette
David Marrero v. (27) Conor Niland
(11) Federico Del Bonis v. Chase Buchanan
Tatsuma Ito v. Andrea Collarini
Nikola Mektic v. Johannes Robert Van Overbeek
Matwe Middelkoop v. (22) Robert Kendrick
(12) Stephane Bohli v. Evgeny Donskoy
Frank Dancevic v. Ivo Minar
Yannick Mertens v. Alexandre Kudryavtsev
Paul Capdeville v. (24) Kei Nishikori
(13) Martin Fischer v. Michael Lammer
Jan Hernych v. Ricardo Ghedin
Chris Guccione v. Bobby Reynolds
Dieter Kindlmann v. (26) Adrian Mannarino
(14) Ilija Bozoljac v. Olivier Patience
Leonardo Tavares v. Guillermo Alcaide
Rik De Voest v. Antonio Veic
Giovanni Lapentti v. (19) Stefan Koubek
(15) Ramon Delgado v. Alexander Peya
Igor Sijsling v. Charles-Antoine Brezac
Jaroslav Pospisil v. Filip Krajinovic
Simon Stadler v. (32) Benoit Paire
(16) Joao Souza v. Jamie Baker
Marc Gicquel v. Adrian Menendez-Maceiras
Amer Delic v. Michael Yani
Ruben Bemelmans v. (20) Thiago Alves

Stay tuned to this tennis website for full coverage of every Grand Slam tournament and every major women’s and men’s tennis tournament on the WTA Tour and ATP Tours. Click this link for further details about the US Open including the schedules of play -> US Open 2010 August 24-September 12.