Former Amity teammates Ben Zuckerberg and Chadd Sullo advanced to the Round of 16 in the men's open division of the Yale Summer Championships.

Zuckerberg, the No. 4 seed, received a first-round bye before beating Wayne Harrell 6-2, 6-4 on Thursday to set up a third-round showdown with John Thornton. The unseeded Sullo posted straight-set wins over No. 12 Matt Wilson and Adrian Amerio.

The seeds pretty much held true to form as 13 of the 16 seeds including No. 1 and former champion Kabelo Maleka, No. 2 Vincent Baudat and third-seeded Marc Powers reached the third round. It could be 14 of 16 if ninth-seeded John Hughes won his second-round match.

With just 27 players entered in the women's open singles event, only one round needed to be played on Thursday. The only seed to fall was No. 7 Monica Yajima, who had to pull out of the event. The opening round play was so straight forward that of the nine matches played, none required a third set.

The winners of the men's and women's open singles titles will earn wild card spots in the Pilot Pen qualifying tournament. The event runs through Sunday at the Connecticut Tennis Center's upper courts.

SELES HEADED TO HALL
Monica Seles, who reached the semifinals in the 1999 Pilot Pen and advanced to the 2000 championship match in New Haven, will be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame on Saturday.

She will be the 15th player who played in the Volvo International or Pilot Pen in New Haven to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. This will be the 12th consecutive year that a player who grace the courts at the Connecticut Tennis Center is being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Here's the complete list:
Player Years in New Haven Year of induction
Boris Becker 1994 (champion), 1995 2003
Michael Chang 1990-92, 1995 2008
Jimmy Connors 1991 1998
Jim Courier 1996, 1997 2005
Stefan Edberg 1991-93 (1992 men's champ) 2004
Steffi Graf 1998 (champion) 2004
Ivan Lendl 1990-94 2001
John McEnroe 1991-92 1999
Martina Navratilova 2000, 2002, 2004 (doubles only) 2000
Jana Novotna 1998-99 2005
Patrick Rafter 1994-98 2006
Pete Sampras 1998 2007
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 1998, 2001-02 2007
Mats Wilander 1990, 1993, 1995-96 2002


CHANGING TIMES
There's a spot-on piece in the Register by columnist Dave Solomon about the subtle shift from Pilot Pen organizers building their marketing strategies around established stars to pushing up and coming phenoms like defending women's singles champion Caroline Wozniacki. That above list shows that the tournament hasn't lacked in star power in the first 19 years of the event but likely Amelie Mauresmo will be the only former world No. 1 player to compete in the 2009 Pilot Pen unless players like Lleyton Hewitt, Marat Safin or Jelena Jankovic opt to come to New Haven. Of course, Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director will be watching Rafael Nadal's progress very closely. If he has any setbacks with his ailing knee which keeps him out of the events in Cincinnati and/or Canada, you better believe Worcester would probably make the trip to the Nadal home in Mallorca, Spain to personally extend a wild card to the charismatic Spainard.