Sock, Harrison Nakashima Get Delray Beach Wildcards

There is a rationale for a place like Delray to give him a wild card. They want to stay in his good graces in case he makes his way back to the top 20 or something. So I don’t have a big problem with this.

The issue is that Sock needs matches so if I was advising him, he should have asked for a wild card into qualifying. I doubt he will beat Albot if he couldn’t beat Giron last week. The qualies were a better option.

The Harrison wild card is still puzzling but Ryan strikes me as a guy similar to Gimelstob who has nothing else going for him except tennis so he may become a tournament manager or media personality in the future and it makes sense for his profile to play in the main draw. And I have more faith in him beating Dzumhur than Sock winning a match.

How about Kyrgios facing Tommy Paul in round one? What a matchup. As well as Sandgren vs. Tiafoe. Foe is 5-0 against the Sandman including Challengers.

That is quite the stat regarding WCs. You have to wonder if these players would have had better carrers without the crutch of so many WCs.

Delray looks a lot more interesting than I would have expected.

I can understand Sock getting a WC for Delray Beach, given his history with the tourney. But no way should he get one anywhere else!

I can’t see ATP 250 tourneys, unless I fork out yet more $, but will be rooting for Milos.

No way, Spadea played Haas. Was that last night or tonight? Haas has been playing very well. He went undefeated on the senior tour last year toying with guys like Roddick and Blake.

How did Vince do?

Went to see Sock play doubles yesterday at New York Open. He did look fitter from when I saw him play at USO last year. He is a remarkable doubles player, but he and Nick Monroe lost in a 3rd set Super Breaker to the Paki wonder, Aisam Quereshi and Domenic Inglot, the Brit. Sock failed to dominate the match as I thought he would, but he looked loose and was having a good time playing with Monroe. I think he’s coached by Alex Bogomolov Jr. now because Alex was courtside, but maybe not because he was with his family.

The NY Open better get some big sponsors, all of their sponsors were local except Dunlop which was selling racquets. The place had a decent size crowd yesterday, Saturday, but little to no energy. It doesn’t help that you have a finals of Edmund v Seppi. Maybe there’d be more support if Sandgren played Opelka in the finals.

But Opelka is a weird-looking dude. I haven’t heard him speak much, but the way he looks and acts on the court, I don’t know if he’ll ever be a real crowd favorite.

Firstly, Levine is still 0-4 against Haas. You don’t pick up a win in a Seniors match. Secondly, Levine was basically a Challenger player.So to say he’d be able to beat Challenger players today is pretty far-fetched. Thirdly, Izzie was last seen In Auckland going up to a boy he hit with a serve and inquiring how he was and offered to give him some tennis swag.

Fourthly, Izzie comes across as a wholesome young man while Opelka comes across as a guy you wouldn’t want to come across in a dark alley. Now both Izzie and Opelka are pretty bland on the court. There’s not a lot of energy being emitted by either. I think Scoop said it recently and its true, if DeMinaur was an American he’d be the next Jimmy Connors. None of these young Americans with the exception of Tiafoe so much as even smiles on the court. One of my son’s practice partners, older and bigger, practiced recently with Noah Rubin and I asked him if Rubin was talkative and he said no, he barely said a word.

So true, Sock belongs in Delray qualies (at best). As is the standard tournaments can hand out wildcards to whoever they want (within some band of plausibility).

If I were Sock I’d save face and play doubles only in Delray and play more regular challenger events, take the occasional wildcard into the qualies draws for smaller tournaments. Play his way in.

I’d guess (I don’t know) a few things are going on. One is (maybe?) cash flow – he’d get more money for a first round loss than if he exits qualies. The other, stubborn nature and pride – I’d think he admits to himself what level he is, but Sock isn’t a guy that improved his weakest areas, so he may not be open to that level of reckoning. Or he just believes he belongs and that’s that, that it is only a matter of time.

I wouldn’t know what’s in Sock’s head.

Isner is a great guy by all accounts. My best friend was friends with a couple sets of parents who had children (girls) who were tennis players, and peers, of John’s in the Triad (High Point, Greensboro, Winston-Salem area) of North Carolina. I was at pre-UNC football tailgate function and this turned out to be one of only two times I ever spoke with them but they knew I had played tennis and chatted me up some. From a decade ago I can only recall tidbits but aside from revealing they (both husbands & wives alike) each thought Ana Ivanovic was like top-model gorgeous (haha, but true, I guess) they also extolled on how wonderful a person John was and how they each had known him as a kid and how well he had treated everyone including their girls (who were then college players and just a couple/few years younger than John). I think even someone who has watched his matches with a cursory glance can tell he is a good guy. However, y’all are right in that he has only occasionally ever used the crowd effectively. He is the proverbial gentle giant. I don’t know if this is accurate, or not, but perhaps there is an inverse relationship to this sort of thing? Likely extrapolating too much, but Connors was one of the biggest jerks around yet he could play and feed off the crowd as well as anyone ever did. I think their style of play is a huge factor, too. No one weeps for Goliath, or some such, plus Isner’s game is not a thing of beauty to my eyes and, likely not to many others, too. Still, a helluva career, still dangerous and one of the few players who, in a sense, simultaneously over AND under achieved.