Black Tennis Pros

Unfortunately tennis fans, one of our more exciting Black Tennis Pro's will not be playing in the 2007 US Open. Gael Monfils of France pulled out yesterday with a right hamstring injury. The 20-year old has a lot of US Opens in front of him, but I will miss his great presence at this one. Ce qui sera sera.

In tonight's match Donald Young went up against world No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko only to be stopped early in the tournament by a score of 6-2, 4-6, 7-5. As is evident though, the Young one put up a valiant fight to try and reach the third round. As a matter of fact, I'm rather impressed. I definitely did not expect this match to go three sets, nor the games to be so close. At 2-3 in the third set, Young broke Davydenko's serve with some beautiful shots, including a drop shot to go up 4-2. Unfortunately Davydenko broke right back. But good show Donald Young!

We all know that it's going to take some time to develop a consistent winning pattern, and that differs player to player (if at all), but the Young one is clearly sending out a message that he is now on the ATP Tour fellas. The apparent difference in the game was Davydenko's first serve percentage which was 66% over Young's 51%.

When asked what this match does for him, Young stated "it obvisously gives me a lot of confidence. It was awesome."



Gael Monfils Edged Out


First up, Gael Monfils. He found out that all the yelling in the world couldn't save him today. Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland defeated Monfils in a straight sets win by a score of 6-4, 7-6. Monfils had a 52% first serve rate, 6 aces and 0 double faults. With the exception of a modest difference in first serve points won, the stats were pretty even. I really wish that I had seen this game because it's difficult to know what the turning point was. Whatever they were, Monfils is out. He's so good. Monfils has really got to work on his consistency. Talk to Blake.

Yesterday's gloomy weather did not dampen the red hot game of James Blake. In pursuit of holding the New Haven title for a second time, he previously won it in 2005, the No. 3 seed followed a very successful week in Cincinnati by continuing his history of perfection over Arnaud Clement of France. In seven meetings Clement has been defeated every time. Blake won by a score of 6-4, 6-2, within which he hit 6 aces, 2 double faults, and had a 57% first serve rate. He also broke Clement's serve 6 times in a match that lasted only 1 hour 15 minutes.

Next up, Blake's third round opponent will be the winner of the match between American Robby Ginepri and Agustin Calleri of Argentina.



Rainy Day Stops Play

The matches to be played by Gael Monfils and Donald Young were washed out by east coast storms. Both are on tap for play today.

In action at the Pilot Pen Tournament today during the day matches will be American Donald Young vs. Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and Frenchman Gael Monfils vs. Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland. And in the evening singles match, American James Blake vs. Arnaud Clement of France. Fantastic action, can't wait!