Newport is the only remaining ATP grass court event that’s held in the United States.  Once upon a time, the tour primarily consisted of grass, but grass is expensive to maintain, and unlike clay, it needs to be grown and maintained.  Unlike golf, this grass is on a small area, so scuffs can be problematic.  Let’s just say, no American city wants to pay the price to maintain grass courts compared to the effortless simplicity of providing hard courts free to the public.

Newport’s scheduling has generally worked against it.  Being the week after Wimbledon, it will never attract Federer or Nadal or Djokovic.  Even so, Americans, particularly, Mardy Fish, have tried to support it over the years.  Fish, however, had his rank go up and down over the years, and he had mostly been down, thus, he rarely won the tournament despite being top seed.  Indeed, the field was so weak that the top seed, until recently, had never won the event.

In 2008, Fabrice Santoro, then on the verge of retiring, was the second seed (it shows you something when a player like Santoro, historically ranked around 40, is the second seed) beat Prakash Amritraj, the son of Vijay Amritraj who had won the event during the 1970s.  In 2009, Sa Querrey was still trying to win his first title, and lost to Rajeev Ram in the finals who had been a lucky loser.  Rajeev Ram, despite his Indian heritage, plays as an American (and was born in the US).  More about Rajeev later.

In 2010, Mardy Fish’s rank had dropped due to injury taking him off the tour, but he won the title as the fifth seed over Olivier Rochus, and this title helped spurned on a successful 2010 and onward.  In 2011, John Isner has been slumping since his win over Nicolas Mahut in 2010, a win that seemed to fatigue them both, though Isner more than Mahut.  Isner had even been scheduled to be at his brother’s wedding.  He promised, should he lose, he’d be on a flight to North Carolina.  But he kept winning and winning, and so he had to skip the wedding to play and win the title.

This year, everyone though John Isner might do well at Wimbledon, even though history has shown that’s he’s not done particularly well at Wimbledon.  Indeed, he’s only reached the quarterfinal at any Slam once and reached the fourth round once.  He’s never gone past the second round at Wimbledon.

This year, after losing to Alejandro Falla in five sets in the opening round, he attributed his poor play to slumping.  He wasn’t feeling confident about hitting the ball.  So, a return back to Newport was like a return to a place he had had success, in particular, last year.

Tennis players are strange in this way.  Players, especially those not at the top of the rankings, often have a few favorite tournaments they like to play each year, mostly because the draw is fairly weak, but also because their fond memories actually translates to good play.  Perhaps the most extreme example of this is Balazs Taroczy, the Hungarian tennis player of the 1980s, won the Dutch Open 6 times.  Brad Gilbert won Tel Aviv three times and was runner up other times.

This year, Newport had drawn a stronger draw than it normally does, partly because this year’s Olympics, to be played at the end of July, is on grass. Seeds included Nishikori, Raonic, Istomin, and Harrison.

Even so, it’s top seed John Isner and wildcard and former number 1, Lleyton Hewitt, in the finals.  Hewitt played 2009 winner, Rajeev Ram, in the semis.  Ram’s ranking tends to float around 100.  One reason he struggles is due to a lack of speed, and to inconsistent groundstrokes.  He prefers to use his big serve to come to net.  Rajeev Ram, much like Roger Federer, idolized Pete Sampras.  Arguably, Ram does a decent lookalike, at least, when it comes to serve, but otherwise, he’s a pale imitation.

Even Hewitt, who struggles with injuries, and must deal with entering smaller events to be relevant in bigger ones, is still more than a match for Rajeev Ram.  Even so, Hewitt found himself a break down early in the first and second set.  He recovered in both sets, winning the first set, but losing the second one after Ram got a late break.  However, Hewitt righted the ship in the third set and got two breaks.

Isner had to face Ryan Harrison in the other semi.  Harrison has continued to improve his game.  He reaches the semis of a few tournaments, but unlike, say, Milos Raonic, who he is compared to, he has yet to win his first tournament, and Isner wasn’t about to give it to him.  Isner won their match, 76, 63.

Despite Wimbledon serving as the last big grass event, clay events are still played after Wimbledon.  In Stuttgart, the Mercedes Cup is played,  The top two seeds, Janko Tipsarevic and Juan Monaco, are in the finals.  This tournament was also the first to feature Lukas Rosol after his Wimbledon upset.  He won one round, but lost to tour veteran, Bjorn Phau who also gave Tipsarevic a tough battle.  Tipsarevic needed three sets to beat Brazilian, Thomaz Bellucci, and Monaco needed three sets to beat Guillermo Garciz-Lopez.

Umag, which is held in Croatia, had its top four seeds: Cilic, Dolgopolov, Verdasco, and Granollers reach the semis.  Marin Cilic and Fernando Verdasco will play in the finals.

Finally, the Swedish Open marks one year since Robin Soderling last played a tournament.  Soderling won this event last year over David Ferrer, but hasn’t played since.  His absence is far longer than del Potro though, of course, much shorter than Brian Baker.

Grigor Dmitrov is beginning to have some improvement in his play.  He hasn’t had big wins, but he has made it deep in tournaments.  In the semis, Ferrer topped Dimitrov in straight sets, and Almagro beat unseeded Jan Hajek.  The top two seeds will meet in the finals tomorrow.