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Register tennis writer Jim Fuller has the latest news on the Pilot Pen tourney and the tennis scene.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Blake is out

OK, so you can ignore my previous post about former Fairfield resident James Blake catching a break with a revised Wimbledon draw following the withdrawal of Rafael Nadal.

Instead of having to play the crafty Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in Santoro's final Wimbledon appearance, he drew Italy's Andreas Seppi who came into Wimbledon having lost five more matches than he has won and had a 4-4 career mark at Wimbledon.

However, I warned that it is dangerous projecting anything with Blake because he has a history of unexplainable defeats. Well, you can add Monday's 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 loss to Seppi to the list. It is Blake's second straight first-round exit in a Grand Slam. Here is a report on the ATP's official site about Blake's loss and state of mind at the current time. Seppi is no stranger to New Haven, playing in the event three times in the last four years and reaching the quarterfinals in 2008.

The unfortunate thing for Blake is he failed to take advantage of a generous draw. The only positive aspect for those "the glass is half full type of people" is that Blake's ranking won't take too much of a hit since he lost in the second round last year.

Feliciano Lopez, who lost to Blake in the 2005 Pilot Pen final, was also knocked out in the first round as he fell to Karol Beck 10-8 in the fifth set. Agustin Calleri, a finalist in New Haven in 2006, also suffered an early exit losing to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in straight sets.

It wasn't all bad news for former Pilot Pen finalists as Mardy Fish, who played for the championship in oth 2007 and 2008 in New Haven, won his first match. Fish was rolling to a straight-set win before Sergio Roitman retired down two sets and trailing 4-1 in the third. Fish was the first player to commit to play in the 2009 Pilot Pen.

Dominika Cibulkova, one of three women's players who committed early to the Pilot Pen, needed three sets before advancing to the second round with a hard-fought win over Julie Coin,

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