Fabrice Santoro Still Has Some Tricks Up His Sleeve

Two-time Newport defending champion and second seed Fabrice Santoro still knows how to saw the rain-soaked Newport draw in half.

The aging French player known as "The Magician" used his trade mark slicing angles and trick shots--as well as his underrated endurance--to win two back-to-back matches on Friday in Rhode Island. He won both his third round and quarterfinal matches in straight (though long) sets, over Taylor Dent and Nicholas Mahut, respectively. Dent and Mahut are both players who play their best tennis on the grass, so it's an impressive pair of victories in what is largely a soft Newport field.

Santoro, who will retire at the end of this season at the age of 37, was the highest ranked player (#34) left in the draw after top-seed Mardy Fish pulled out to fill in for Andy Roddick in Croatia. Santoro will face the second highest seed remaining in the semifinal, #3 American Sam Querrey.

While the bottom half of the draw is set to produce a decidedly impressive finalist, Fish's withdrawal has left the top half in shambles. #120 Olivier Rochus will face #181 Rajeev Ram in a semifinal that boasts a mean ranking outside the top 150.

.

I'm guessing tickets may still be available.

Tuesday's Slices--7/7/09

Four things that happened today in the world of tennis that you may have missed:

1. Still struggling to recover from a shoulder injury that had him out for well over a year, American Taylor Dent took a nice step toward regaining his old form by securing a relatively routine 6-2, 6-1 win over Brazilian Marcos Daniel in Newport. The grass at Newport should help Dent's serve-and-volley game immensely, hopefully giving him the springboard he needs to get back into the top 200. The previous time Dent won a match in the main draw of an ATP tournament was way back in April. His opponent in that match? Marcos Daniel. When you got 'em, you got 'em.
2. The top two ranked Italians on the WTA Tour, Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone, met today in the first round of the hard court tournament in Bastad, Sweden. The #3 seed Pennetta beat recent Wimbledon quarterfinalist Schiavone 6-2, 7-5. It's an unfortunate draw for both in an otherwise soft first round. I cannot fathom why Pennetta came to Bastad this week in the first place, when there was a perfectly good obscure clay court tournament in Budapest to be played. No one loves obscure clay court tournaments the way Flavia Pennetta does.
   
3. There is something strange going on with the seeds in Budapest. Both Sara Errani (#7) and Lucie Safarova (#8) were served a bagel by their qualifier opponents. Even stranger, Alize Cornet (#2), who can only beat the traffic of late, managed to win her match over Galina Voskoboeva. I haven't seen photos, but I'm guessing Voskoboeva was playing without the use of one or more of her legs.
   
4. Small weeks for the main tours usually mean big weeks for the challenger circuits, and this week is no exception. The men haveThe women are in a $100k in Biarritz and a $75k in Zagreb, with some pretty nice fields at each (headlined by Lucie Hradecka and Rossanna De Los Rios, respectively). Cult fan favorite Zuzana Ondraskova picked up a nice 6-2, 6-0 win in Zagreb over the third-ranked Serb, Ana Jovanovic. In Serbian women's tennis, Jovanovic is only behind Jelena Jankovic (#6) and Ana Ivanovic (#11). Jovanovic is #229. That's quite the drop-off.