US Open Series upon us
The United States Open series (at least the men’s side) kicked off last week with the Countrywide Classic tournament held in LA. The series is a six week long “hardcourt” season of tennis held prior to the US Open grand slam tournament. It was first organized in 2004 to promote tennis in the United States. This week features the Indianapolis Tennis Championships (men) and Bank of the West Classic (women). The full schedule can be found here. The series also features two ATP Masters Events (commonly known as Cincinnati Masters and Canada Masters) and two WTA Tier I Events (Acura Classic and Canada Masters). The US Open series is significant, because it is the warm-up season for the US Open and the winner of the series gets their prize money at the US Open doubled. In 2004, Lindsay Davenport became the first (and only) player to get her $1.1 million for winning the US Open doubled. The $2.2 million she received was the highest pay-out ever in women’s sports. Last year Andy Roddick won the series for the men, and Ana Ivanovic for the women.
The US Open Series gets more coverage than any other tennis season in America. According to its website, the series will get:
More than 100 hours of live, national TV coverage on ESPN2, NBC and CBS (see schedule, page 17), including back-to-back live tournament finals on Sunday. In addition, there will be more than 100 hours of additional US Open Series coverage on The Tennis Channel.
To read the entire US Open preview from its website, click here.
To see the television schedule, click here.
The current men’s standings are as follows: (no standings for the women yet)
1. Radek Stepanek (CZE) 50
2. James Blake (USA) 35
3. Nicolas Kiefer (GER) 22
Hyung-Taik Lee (KOR) 22
5. Michael Berrer (GER) 12
Zack Fleishman (USA) 12
Marat Safin (RUS) 12
Vincent Spadea (USA) 12
In the next few days expect more coverage of the US Open series, and some previews for both the ATP and WTA hard court season.
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