Ninth-ranked Gilles Simon, who would have been the No. 2 seed in the men's draw, has pulled out. Haven't heard the official reason but you don't need to be a genius to figure it out. He reached the third round in Canada and is into the quarterfinals in Cincinnati.

We'll see if there are any other of these "I have played enough tennis so I am pulling out" withdrawals. The candidates to keep an eye on are Sam Querrey on the men's side (although he was eliminated from Cincinnati) and Samantha Stosur and Agnieszka Radwanska on the women's side. Stosur is still alive in singles and doubles in Toronto while Radwanska will play Maria Sharapova in singles tonight.

Chile's Paul Capdeville moves into the main draw with Simon's departure. Robert Kendrick and Teimuraz Gabashvili got into the main draw when the two special exemption slots were not filled.

Time to head out to the tennis center. Want to catch some of Farmington's Rachel Kahan's match and then see Christina McHale play on the Grandstand Court before the women's and men's main draws are conducted.

James Blake isn't even playing in the 2009 Pilot Pen but he is still the center of attention.

On a day when No. 10 men's player Fernando Verdasco and No. 12 women's player Nadia Petrova accepted wild cards while rising American stars John Isner and Melanie Oudin respectively withdrew a wild card request and pulled out of the qualifying draw and former top 10er Richard Gasquet was confirmed to be entering the men's qualifying field, the Connecticut media (myself included) focused most of the attention on Blake.

The former Fairfield resident and two-time men's singles champion in New Haven is not entering the tournament, citing too many off the court scheduling conflicts. Personally, I think from a tennis standpoint, he is making a big mistake. Blake has lost his last five matches and will go into the U.S. Open with one match under his belt during the North American summer hard-court season.

Blake said the fractured right pinky toe was suffered when he was walking around in the dark in his hotel room in Croatia the week after Wimbledon. He jokingly chalked it up to bad karma since his brother Thomas suffered a similar injury and James busted Thomas' chops unmercifully. Blake hit with good friends Mardy Fish and Todd Paul for about two hours on Thursday on Stadium Court.

Blake was a bit more serious when talk came to why he is skipping the New Haven event for the second straight year.

"There’s a lot of things that went into it," Blake said. "I love playing in Connecticut. I love the fans and they seem to appreciate my style of tennis, I am having fun out here and give them a chance to have a lot of fun in the stands. I do have a lot of commitments coming up, I have my clothing line coming out.

"I definitely could see myself coming back here. The fans are the best but this year it was just too tough especially with how the scheduling has been for the ATP with the 500 (in Washington) and two 1000s (in Cincinnati and Canada) right before the (Pilot Pen), that makes it really difficult. I think there are going to be some tweaks to the ATP schedule and when that happens, this is the first spot I would look at to have a change in the calendar to make it possible for me to play here."

Blake said his injured toe feels good. As for his game, he will enter the Open on a five-match losing streak so his confidence is hardly soaring.

"It is a new challenge, my ranking won’t be where I think it should be, my match (preparation) won’t be where it should be but I will go in with a new scenario," Blake said. "I have been in the Open in a lot of situations, coming from here as a first-round loser, coming here as a title holder and different results and this year it will be a new one."

Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director Anne Worcester is obviously disappointed not to have Blake in the field but she was feeling better on Thursday after listening in on Blake's interview with the media immediately following his practice session.

"I am so glad he came here today. I love James Blake, I think he is such a fantastic person. I was very disappointed that he didn’t chose to take a last-minute wild card but I am glad he came here to practice. He was honest with me. While I would much rather he was playing in the main draw but I told him ‘I am glad to have you here under any circumstances.’ I am disappointed but he clearly feels comfortable here and I don’t want that to change. I do understand how complicated it is to organize all those events with sponsors, television, people and he has a very tightly packed week next week. I understand that you can’t back out of corporate commitments."

The tournament finalized its wild cards. On the men's side they will go to Taylor Dent, Verdasco, Rajeev Ram and Marcos Baghdatis. For the women, they were given to Svetlana Kuznetsova, Petrova and Meghann Shaughnessy.

Qualifying wild cards went to NCAA singles champions Devin Britton and Mallory Cecil, Yale Summer Championship open division winners Marc Powers and Rachel Kahan as well as Chase Buchanan, Jessie Levine, Gail Brodsky, and Christina McHale.

Tomorrow the draws will be pulled beginning at 12:30 p.m. and are open to the public. The women's draw figures to be done first with Gisela Dulko the WTA player representative. Dent will be the ATP player to help with the men's draw.

The women's qualifying draw will begin tomorrow and here is the schedule:
GRANDSTAND start 10:00 am
Qualifying - [WC] R Kahan (USA) vs M Niculescu (ROU)
Qualifying - Y Wickmayer (BEL) vs [WC] C Mchale (USA)
Qualifying - [WC] M Cecil (USA) vs J Craybas (USA)
Qualifying - U Radwanska (POL) vs M Kirilenko (RUS)

COURT 1 start 10:00 am
Qualifying - V Diatchenko (RUS) vs A Petkovic (GER)
Qualifying - R Vinci (ITA) vs [WC] G Brodsky (USA)
Qualifying - S Errani (ITA) vs V Lepchenko (USA)

Not Before 3:00 PM
Qualifying - S Peer (ISR) vs T Garbin (ITA)

COURT 2 start 10:00 am
Qualifying - A Brianti (ITA) vs I Olaru (ROU)
Qualifying - A Parra Santonja (ESP) vs V Kutuzova (UKR)
Qualifying - O Govortsova (BLR) vs C Pin (FRA)

Not Before 3:00 PM
Qualifying - M Rybarikova (SVK) vs K Bondarenko (UKR)

COURT 3 start 10:00 am
Qualifying - K Kucova (SVK) vs A Dulgheru (ROU)
Qualifying - E Gallovits (ROU) vs P Hercog (SLO)
Qualifying - T Pironkova (BUL) vs L Hradecka (CZE)

Not Before 3:00 PM
Qualifying - K Flipkens (BEL) vs N Llagostera Vives (ESP) - TBA


Now all the tournament can do is hope there aren't any withdrawals between now and the start of the main draw. When you have players like Samantha Stosur and Sam Querrey who have been advancing deep in nearly event summer tournament, it does cause Worcester a bit of a concern.

The men's qualifying draw won't begin until Saturday. There's no question what the big story will be. France's Richard Gasquet, a former top 10 player, has had a trying last six months. He was drug tested at the tour stop in Miami and small amounts of cocaine were found in his system. He was suspended for two years but appealed saying the cocaine got in his system when he kissed a woman at a Miami club. A panel of three lawyers believed him, largely because the amount of cocaine was so small, and overturned the appeal. The International Tennis Federation, which first banned Gasquet, countered Gasquet's success appeal with an appeal of their own. Since the United States Tennis Association works closely with the ITF, they have no plans to award a wild card to Gasquet so he has to go through qualifying.

I know ome people want to come down on the tournament but this is out of their hands. Every wild card request has to be approved by the USTA and most are. This is a case where the tournament was not able to give Gasquet a wild card. There are also USTA rules on tournament officials commenting about why players don't receive wild cards. Knowing this, I reached out to the USTA via e-mail this morning. I received eight e-mails from the USTA but none of them happened to be a response to my request for a comment on Gasquet's wild card request.

The wild card picture is starting to come into focus.

No. 10 Fernando Verdasco received a men's wild card, marking the fifth straight year he will play in New Haven while No. 12 Nadia Petrova was given a women's wild card.

In other news, John Isner, who suffered heat exhaustion forcing him to retire in his singles match in Cincinnati, withdrew his wild card request giving the tournament two men's wild cards.

James Blake met with the media after a two-hour hitting session and said he is not playing in New Haven. There will be more on his decision in friday's Register.

Also, No. 1 Dinara Safina and No. 7 Vera Zvonareva will not be requesting wild cards meaning the tournament will lose one of its top 10 wild cards so there are no more women's wild cards available.

Marcos Baghdatis will likely get one of the wild cards with the other going to an American to be determined by the USTA.

The tournament has confirmed that Richard Gasquet intends to play qualifying, his first match since being suspended for testing positive for cocaine in March. The International Tennis Federation is appealing the decision and the USTA, which works in conjunction with the ITF, had no intentions of agreeing to give Gasquet a main-draw wild card.

Julien Benneteau, who moved up to No. 1 on the alternate list, pulled out.

There have been no withdrawals so far on the women's side.

Former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic will not be requesting a wild card despite losing Wednesday in Toronto. The tournament is still waiting to hear one way or the other from Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva. If the two Russians both decline, the Pilot Pen will lose its fourth wild card because it has to go to a player who ended the 2008 season ranked in the top 10. Safina lost early in Toronto while Zvonareva doesn't play until 7:30 p.m. so she would have to request a wild card before taking the court against Maria Sharapova.

No. 12 Nadia Petrova appears to be in line to receive the third wild card. No. 6 Svetlana Kuznetsova and former top 15 player Meghann Shaughnessy were given wild cards on Wednesday.

On the men's side, Albert Montanes withdrew and he will be replaced in the main draw by Andrey Golubev. Julian Benneteau will also move into the main draw. Benneteau is now first on the alternate list and will move in with another withdrawal (Kristof Vliegen is the most likely candidate to withdraw since he posted on his official site that he would not be able to play in New Haven). Even without a withdrawal, Benneteau would get into the main draw through the two special exemption spots. A special exemption can be given to a player who reached the semifinals in one tournament while being entered in the main draw of the next event. Since it is impossible for a player to play in both tournaments at the same time, the ATP will award them a spot as a special exemption. Benneteau and Chris Guccione are the only ones who fall under the criteria to receive a special exemption so no matter what happens, Benneteau would be in the New Haven draw.

American Robert Kendrick, who made news this summer first with his gallant effort before falling in four sets to Andy Murray at Wimbledon and then for his role in a confrontation with Leander Paes in a World Team Tennis match, is moving up to alternate list. He is currently the fourth alternate but if Benneteau moves into the main draw because of another withdrawal and Guccione doesn't advance to the semifinals at Cincinnati, the special exemption spots would go to Maximo Gonzalez (who owns wins over Mardy Fish and Carlos Moya this year) and Teimuraz Gabashvili. Kendrick would move up to the No. 1 alternate spot.

Finally got a chance to kick back at home after a long day of not only putting together a story for Thursday's paper on the day's player movement updates but finishing the retrospective of the previous 19 tournaments held at the Connecticut Tennis Center. That will be prominently featured in Friday's edition of the Register as the tournament holds its 20th ATP or WTA or in the current case both ATP and WTA event.

The biggest surprise of the day is that James Blake did not enter and it is looking like he won't be entering. Sorry, I just don't get it. He needs some matches, a bit of confidence or something because what he's been doing recently just isn't working. I realize he just came back from a foot injury and perhaps it is more serious than we are being led to believe and he believes playing in New Haven would seriously jeapordize his chance to compete at the U.S. Open. If that is not the case, Blake is being downright foolish. He has a chance to fine tune his game which is a complete and utter mess at the current time while playing in front of friends and family at a tournament he credits for jumpstarting his career. If the foot is OK then something just isn't adding up here.

Surprise No. 2 was the tournament giving its second women's wild card to Meghann Shaughnessy, ranked 915th, over No. 12 Nadia Petrova. I know Shaughnessy is an American and the Pilot Pen is a USTA event and has been a regular competitor at the tournament (this will be her ninth appearance in the singles main draw). I realize she has had to deal with a knee injury which sidelined her for long stretches but she hasn't won a WTA level match since 2007. Meanwhile Petrova was in the top 10 earlier this summer and would add even more depth to the field. Petrova is still in line to get a wild card tomorrow but if she doesn't, will it hurt the tournament's chances to get Petrova to commit to the event in the future?

I fully expected Svetlana Kuznetsova to enter the tournament after her loss to Samantha Stosur in Toronto and she did. She will likely be the No. 1 seed in the tournament just as she was in 2007 when she won the title in New Haven.

When I spoke to Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director Anne Worcester in the late afternoon, she threw a lot of names of players she is pursuing.

The ones she threw out there on the women's side - No. 1 Dinara Safina, No. 7 Vera Zvonareva, No. 11 Ana Ivanovic and No. 22 Daniela Hantuchova are certainly interesting. Safina seems like little more than a hope and a prayer by Worcester even with her loss today but Worcester will never be accused to leaving things to chance, that's for sure. If top players don't come to the tournament, it is certainly not because Worcester has forgotten about them. Ivanovic's chances for entering just went up significantly after losing to Lucie Safarova Wednesday night. I haven't seen the order of play for tomorrow yet but with a 4 p.m. women's wild-card deadline, Zvonareva will need to have an early match and lose to even consider asking for a wild card. It is promising that both have reached out to the tournament to express an interest. If Hantuchova requests one, Worcester is in a tough spot. Because neither Petrova nor Hantuchova finished 2008 in the top 10, the Pilot Pen would have to pick between them. Of course they could enter, go to the top of the "next in" list and hope for a withdrawal. Ivanovic and Zvonareva did end up in the year-end top 10 in 2008 and since two of the wild cards are for top 10 players, Worcester can give one of them a spot and still have one wild card remaining for Petrova or whoever else throws their name into the fray. If no top 10 player enters, Ai Sugiyama would most likely move into the main draw.

Venus Williams just is not going to happen. Despite her early loss in Toronto, she is content to rest up for the Open and get her preparation on the practice courts.

On the men's side, she mentioned Lleyton Hewitt (not happening now that he won today), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (if he wasn't still alive in the Cincinnati doubles draw I would saw he was an option) and Fernando Verdasco. I could see the Verdasco thing happening, in fact I will be surprised if it doesn't get done. Verdasco has played this summer but has not had an outlandish number of matches. He has also taken a shine to playing in New Haven, playing each year since the ATP returned to the Elm City in 2005. He was a semifinalist last year and twice before reached the quarterfinals.

Robby Ginepri and Marin Cilic are definitely not options, both confirming they are not interested in wild cards. Cilic was more of a surprise than Ginepri since Cilic has been struggling a bit and he did win the title here last year.

That is only half the deal, however. With every player suffering early losses becoming a potential wild card request, those advancing deep into this week's tournaments are potential withdrawal candidates. When you look at players like Samantha Stosur and Sam Querrey (who just finished off Andy Roddick in Cincinnati) who have played a ton of tennis this summer, I'm sure the tournament organizers won't rest easily until they actually see them on site.

The women's wild card deadline is 4 p.m. on Thursday with the men having until noon on Friday so expect another hectic day tomorrow. It's looking like both singles draws will be pulled in the early afternoon on Friday.

Going out on a limb and predicting that the women's wild cards go to Ivanovic and Petrova and the men's wild cards to Verdasco and Marcos Baghdatis (although one of the young Americans), here's what the top 10 seeds could look like
MEN WOMEN
8 Nikolay Davydenko 6 Svetlana Kuznetsova
9 Gilles Simon 8 Caroline Wozniacki
10 Fernando Verdasco* 10 Flavia Pennetta
16 Tommy Robredo 11 Ana Ivanovic*
19 David Ferrer 12 Nadia Petrova*
22 Mardy Fish 13 Agnieszka Radwanska
26 Sam Querrey 14 Marion Bartoli
27 Igor Andreev 15 Dominika Cibulkova
28 Victor Hanescu 16 Amelie Mauresmo
33 Nicolas Almagro 17 Samantha Stosur
(*-not yet officially in the field)

Would the tournament love to have a Williams sister or two? James Blake and Andy Roddick? Absolutely. But considering the tournament following two mandatory events and is followed by the U.S. Open, that's a high quality field. We'll see if ticket buyers agree.

Taylor Dent, who received a wild card into the Pilot Pen, was one of six Americans to receive wild cards into the main draw of the U.S. Open.

Dent, who was ranked in the top 20 before injuries nearly ended his career, is looking to regain his form first at the Connecticut Tennis Center and then at the Open.

Other Americans receiving wild cards are reigning NCAA champion Devon Britton, Jesse Levine, Brendan Evans, Rajeev Ram and Chase Buchanan (winner of the USTA 18-and-under title). Australia's Chris Guccione and a player to be named by the French Tennis Association also received wild cards. What this means is all the players are free to compete in the Pilot Pen if they are so inclined.

Dent has already been given a wild card and barring any last-minute surprises by tomorrow's wild-card deadline, one of the other Americans listed above could also earn a spot in the New Haven main draw.

The women's U.S. Open wild cards will be announced tomorrow.

Reigning French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, currently ranked No. 6 on the WTA tour, will be coming to New Haven.

Kuznetsova, who reached the semifinals in 2006 and won the title in 2007 in her two previous appearances at the Pilot Pen, was just 3-4 since winning the French Open leading to her requesting a wild card.

Kuznetsova will give the tournament three top 10 women's players in No. 6 Kuznetsova, No. 8 Carolina Wozniacki and No. 10 Flavia Pennetta.

Veteran American Meghann Shaughnessy, currently ranked 915th in singles and unranked in doubles as she has been forced out of action because of a knee injury, will receive wild cards into both the singles and doubles draw.

The tournament now has two wild cards left for both the men and women.

No. 12 Nadia Petrova is a strong candidate to receive one of the women's wild cards while the tournament is awaiting word from No. 22 Daniela Hantuchova.

On the men's side, No. 34 Dudi Sela and No. 41 Juan Monaco withdrew from the main draw.

Following up on a previous entry, it looks as if Venus Williams and James Blake, the only players to win the Pilot Pen more than once, will opt for rest over playing in New Haven.

Williams quotes following her loss on Tuesday in Toronto made it clear that she is not planning to play again before the U.S. Open. Blake, a former Fairfield resident, also appears to be leaning that way. A post on his official site said Blake will take next week off meaning that the only matches he will play between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open will be a pair of losses in a Davis Cup tie to Croatia and Tuesday's loss in Mason, Ohio to Igor Kunitsyn.

Could the Pilot Pen women's field be adding a former New Haven champion as well as the reigning French Open winner?

Well, 2007 Pilot Pen champio Svetlana Kuznetsova was one of the prominent players who suggested to tournament director Anne Worcester that she not give out all her wild cards prematurely. The message was pretty clear, if Kuznetsova lost early in Canada, she would be willing to play in New Haven.

With Kuznetsova losing to the red-hot Samantha Stosur (who would be my pick right now to win the New Haven title based on the success she has enjoyed this summer) on Tuesday in Canada, it seems likely that Kuznetsova will return to New Haven.

Kuznetsova, currently ranked sixth, peaked at No. 2 in the rankings shortly after winning the 2007 Pilot Pen title. At the French Open, Kuznetsova beat No. 2 Serena Williams in the quarterfinals, Stosur in the semifinals and top-ranked Dinara Safina in the championship match. If Kuznetsova enters the Pilot Pen, it would be the third top 10 player in the New Haven women's field joining No. 8 Caroline Wozniacki and No. 10 Flavia Pennetta.

I fully expect that by this time tomorrow I will be writing about James Blake being the newest entry into the 2009 Pilot Pen Tennis tournament.

Bear in mind, this is nothing more than a hunch on my part. However, barring a setback with his injured foot which kept him out of action for the summer, it makes so much sense that Blake will request - and of course be granted - a wild card.

It was at the 2005 Pilot Pen where Blake's career took a turn for the better. Injuries and illness forced Blake off the tour and his ranking to plummet so far that he needed a wild card just to get into the Pilot Pen. He promptly won tournament, the first combined men's and women's event ever held during the North American summer hard-court season, much to the delight of his enthusiastic rooting section and tournament officials who marketed the "J-Block" phenomenon with as much fervor as humanly possible. After his stunning loss in New Haven in 2006, Blake returned and won the title again in 2007.

This season has been a struggle for Blake. Since reaching the Queens Club final the week before Wimbledon, Blake is 0-4. On Tuesday he fell to Igor Kunitsyn in the first round in Cincinnati.

Suddenly Blake seemed underprepared for the U.S. Open, something that can be remedied by entering the Pilot Pen. Blake is a smart cookie, intelligent enough to get into Harvard so I am sure he can see the logic in attempting to get his game in gear in front of friends and family at a venue where he has enjoyed success before.

As for Venus Williams, who suffered a stunning loss in Toronto on Tuesday, she seems less likely to enter a tournament she won four years in a row from 1999-2002. After her loss to qualifier Kateryna Bondarenko at the Rogers Cup, Williams said she plans to rest up for the U.S. Open after a busy summer.

It should be noted that Blake and Williams are both represented by Carlos Fleming so expect Carlos to hear from Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director Anne Worcester tomorrow if not sooner.

The last few days before the tennis begins typically is an event onto itself with wild card requests coming in and Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director Anne Worcester bombarding agents of any top-flight players who happen to lose early in this week's ATP and WTA events with e-mails, text messages and phone calls, 2009 is no different.

This is what I know so far:

No. 13 men's player Gael Monfils has withdrawn his request for a wild card
No. 12 women's player Nadia Petrova has submitted a request for a wild card
Robby Ginepri has yet to request a men's main draw wild card.
Two-time men's finalist Mardy Fish, who has endured an injury-riddled summer, is expected into New Haven by either Wednesday or Thursday and should be good to go.

Now, switching to the "what could be" department:
The biggest news in the women's event in Toronto was Venus Williams' three-set loss to qualifier Kateryna Bondarenko. That result coupled with Williams' early exit in Cincinnati certainly raises the possibility of a clearly out of sorts Williams (60 unforced errors in Tuesday's loss) coming to New Haven for the first time since she won her fourth straight Pilot Pen title in 2002. But right now it is little more than wishful thinking. Williams is such a long shot to play here that she has barely been on Worcester's radar. Of course that changed once Tuesday's result came across her desk. Carlos Fleming, who also represents two-time New Haven men's singles champion James Blake, is Williams' agent. Worcester wasted little time in reaching out to Fleming.

Blake, a former Fairfield resident, is another interesting prospect. He played in New Haven from 2005-07, winning the titles in '05 and '07. A foot injury kept him sidelined this summer. He returned to the court on Tuesday against Igor Kunitsyn and he is currently going to a third set. If Blake gets knocked out early, a return to New Haven is a possibility.

Other noteworthy upsets which caught Worcester's eyes were the losses of No. 10 Fernando Verdasco and No. 11 Robin Soderling in Cincinnati and No. 22 Hantuchova in Toronto. She is also keeping tabs on No. 6 Svetlana Kuznetsova and No. 11 Ana Ivanovic, who have expressed some interest in playing in New Haven if they feel as if they did not get in enough tennis this week.

Look for some more concrete news to emerge on Wednesday and Thursday.

ESPN will provide 14 hours of coverage of the Pilot Pen, all on ESPN2 beginning Thursday, Aug. 27 at 1 p.m. and culminating with the men's final on Aug. 29 beginning at 7 p.m.

ESPN's announcing team will consist of Chris Fowler, Cliff Drysdale, Darren Cahill, Mary Joe Fernandez and Mike Tirico.

Here's ESPN's schedule

Thur, Aug 27 12-12:30 p.m. US Open Draw Announcement ESPNEWS
1-5 p.m. ATP & WTA Pilot Pen ESPN2
7-9 p.m. ATP & WTA Pilot Pen ESPN2
Fri, Aug 28 Noon-4 p.m. ATP & WTA Pilot Pen ESPN2
7-9 p.m. ATP & WTA Pilot Pen ESPN2
Sat, Aug 29 7-9 p.m. ATP Pilot Pen – men’s final ESPN2

New Jersey teen Christina McHale, who is a two-time women's open champion at the Yale Summer Championships, dropped just one set in seven matches to win the USTA 18-and-under title and earn a women's singles main draw wild card into the U.S. Open.

McHale's run of straight-set wins ended with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 win over Gail Brodsky in the semifinals. McHale rolled to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Lauren Embree in the finals. What this means is that McHale won't have to play in U.S. Open qualifying (although she was a strong candidate for a U.S. Open wild card regardless of her results in the last week in Berkeley, Calif.) and could earn a wild card into Pilot Pen qualifying. McHale has expressed an interest into returning to New Haven.

McHale, currently ranked No. 386 on the WTA tour, lost to Sara Errani 6-3, 6-4 in the opening round of the 2008 Pilot Pen qualifying draw. She also fell in the opening round of qualifying to Olga Savchuk. McHale won a play-in tournament to earn a main draw wild card into the Australian Open in January and lost a thrilling first-round match to Jessica Moore 1-6, 6-3, 9-7.

She has split her time playing satellite and junior events. McHale defeated Embree to win the prestigious Easter Bowl title and reached the finals at the Orange Bowl event. She also teamed with Ajla Tomljanovic to win the Australian Open junior girls' doubles title.

As hard as it is to believe, at this time next week day one of the 2009 Pilot Pen Tennis tournament will be in the books.

Between now and Friday, the final six wild card spots (two on the men's side and four on the women) will be announced and I'm sure tournament officials are hoping that will be the only player movement.

The draws of the women's event in Montreal and men's tournament in Cincinnati came out on Friday and there are some matchups which could impact which players request wild cards.

On the women's side, Pilot Pen Tennis tournament director has been reaching out to Ana Ivanovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Daniela Hantuchova (among others) based on their summer results or lack of results in most cases.

Considering that Petrova, who will fall out of the top 10 when the rankings come out on Monday, has to play Maria Sharapova, Kuznetsova could draw red-hot Samantha Stosur in the second round while Hantuchova will have to play Serena Williams if she beats a qualifier in her first match, the odds of those three requesting wild cards seems to be pretty good. Ivanovic, however, seems to have a favorable draw. She will play a qualifier in the first round, either Kaia Kanepi or another qualifier in the second round and possibly Caroline Wozniacki in the third round if that portion of the draw plays out according to form.

On the men's side, two-time champion James Blake is at the top of the tournament's wish list. I haven't heard any updates on Blake's injured foot which forced him to pull out of the tournaments in Washington and Canada but if he is healthy, he seems to have a favorable draw. Blake, who is unseeded in Cincinnati, will face Igor Kunitsyn in the first round. Among the other players in his portion of the bracket, Blake has a winning record again all six of them including a 7-0 mark against Nikolay Davydenko and 6-0 record versus Igor Andreev so a run to the quarterfinals is not out of the question. If he does win at least three matches, it is possible Blake will deem that enough match preparation for the upcoming U.S. Open.

Another player to watch is defending Pilot Pen champion Marin Cilic. Cilic has not been making waves about playing in New Haven but he lost to No. 153 Somdev Devvarman in Washington and fell to Mikhail Youzhny in his opener in Canada. Cilic has to play former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, who has been playing inspired tennis this summer, in the first round so a third straight first-round exit is not out of the question.

Gael Monfils, who has been making some noise about playing in New Haven, drew hard-serving Ivo Karlovic in the first round in Cincinnati while American Robby Ginepri will have to play Marat Safin in the opening round. Another intriguing first-round showdown in Cincinnati (or Mason, Ohio to be exact) features Lleyton Hewitt against Robin Soderling.

PAIGE IMPRESSIVE AT NATIONALS
After winning two matches in the main draw of the USTA 16-and-under national championships in Kalamazoo, Mich., Hopkins rising sophomore Nolan Paige was denied a spot in the quarterfinals by Robert Stineman. But the Fairfield resident and reigning Register Area Boys' Tennis MVP, rebounded by winning four matches in the "feed in" portion of the draw including victories over seeded players Spencer Simon and Mitchell Krueger. He will face Nick Chappell in the quarterfinals of the consolation bracket next meaning Paige can finish no worse than 12th out of the 256 players in the signature 16-and-under event on the USTA junior calendar.

The wins keep coming for Pilot Pen commit Flavia Pennetta, who upset Venus Williams to reach the quarterfinals of this week's event in Cincinnati. Pennetta's 13th straight match win coupled with early losses by Nadia Petrova and Ana Ivanovic has Pennetta about to jump into the top 10 for the first time.

Pennetta, who won at Palermo (Italy) and Los Angeles in her last two events, would be tied with Ivanovic for the 10th spot if she did not advance any further. It appears as if Ivanovic would hold the tiebreaker, denying Pennetta of top 10 status. But if she beats Daniela Hantuchova in the quarterfinals, she would definitely crack the top 10.

If that happens, she will join No. 8 Caroline Wozniacki to give the tournament two top 10 players. Wozniacki would jump up a spot if she reaches the finals in Cincinnati.

Hopkins rising sophomore Nolan Paige, one of the rare Connecticut players to be seeded at the USTA National Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich., opened with a pair of wins in the boys' 16-and-under singles and three wins in the boys' 16 doubles draw with partner William Spector of Weston, Mass. However his run in the championship brackets ended both in singles and doubles on Wednesday.

Paige fell to unseeded Robert Stineman 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the fourth round in singles while Paige and his doubles partner William Spector of Weston, Mass. lost to the No. 13 seeded team of Ashok Narayana and Michael Riechmann, both of Houston, 7-5, 6-4 in the fourth round of doubles.

Paige, who is seeded 23rd in the singles draw, posted straight set wins over Miami's Matthew Saiontz and Ricky Baylon of Buena Park, Calif. after receiving a first-round bye.

In doubles, Paige and Spector posted three straight-set wins including a 7-6, 6-4 upset of the third-seeded squad of Bjorn Fratangelo of Pittsburgh and Jeremy Efferdin of Lake Worth, Fla.

WHO'S NO. 2?
Andy Roddick is the unquestioned king of American tennis but former Fairfield resident James Blake has company in the quest to be the second-ranked American.

Recently Mardy Fish moved by Blake, for a week, to become the No. 2 American before Blake reclaimed the second spot in the most recent rankings.

However, with the points from last year's Olympics set to come off the board on Monday, Blake's ranking will take a hit.

Blake reached the Olympic semifinals so he will lose 310 points and if the rankings came out right now, he would be ranked 24th. Fish would check in at No. 22 with Sam Querrey closing fast at No. 25. While those rankings could change depending on how things shake out the rest of the week in Montreal, the order of the Americans will not be altered since Blake and Fish pulled out of the tournament and Querrey lost in the first round. Blake has a chance to move by Fish again next week since Fish will lose the 280 points he received for reaching the finals of the 2008 Pilot Pen in the Aug. 24 rankings.

John Isner has been given the second of four men's singles main-draw wild cards into the Pilot Pen.

The 6-foot-9 Isner, who saw his ranking tumble out of the top 125 after being sidelined with mononucleosis, has moved up 31 spots to No. 55 in the last three weeks after reaching the semifinals in Indianapolis and Washington and quarterfinals in Los Angeles.

Isner joins Taylor Dent as wild card entries into the men's portion of the New Haven tournament. Richard Gasquet and Marcos Baghdatis are among the other players who have requested wild cards from the tournament.

The Pilot Pen starts on Aug. 21 with qualifying play. The champions will be crowned on Aug. 29.

When the Los Angeles event started, the focus was squarely on world No. 1 Dinara Safina and the other four top 10 players as well as former No. 1s Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic.

But the last two standing are Pilot Pen commits Flavia Pennetta (who took out No. 10 Nadia Petrova, No. 7 Vera Zvonareva and Sharapova) and Samantha Stosur (who eliminated Ivanovic). They will meet in today's final and when the rankings come out tomorrow, Pennetta will jump two spots to No. 12 and Stosur will move up from No. 19 to No. 17 regardless of today's result.

In other news which could ultimate have an impact on the Pilot Pen, former world No. 1 Kim Clijsters did not get a favorable draw in her return to the WTA tour as she will play Pilot Pen commit Marion Bartoli in the first round in Cincinnati. If Clijsters has early exits from either Cincinnati or Toronto, it wouldn't be a shock to see her request a wild card. With big name wild card requests on the women's side appearing to be few and far between, the tournament would welcome Clijsters to the field.

Hopkins rising sophomore and reigning Register Area Tennis Most Valuable Player Nolan Paige already has a rather impressive resume. He looks to add to it in the coming days in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Paige, a Fairfield resident, is the No. 23 seed in the 16-and-under singles bracket of the USTA National Championships. As junior tournaments in the country go, they don't get much bigger than this. Paige will receive a first-round bye and play either Miami's Matthew Saiontz or Nicholas Naumann of The Woodlands, Tex. He will also play doubles with William Spector of Weston, Mass.

As previously reported in the New Haven Register, former top 10 players Richard Gasquet and Marcos Baghdatis along with red-hot John Isner (fresh off his win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Washington) have requested men's singles main-draw wild cards.

There are media outlets both in France and the U.S. reporting that Gasquet will return to the tour in New Haven after successfully appealing his suspension after cocaine was found in his system during a drug test. However, this could be the tennis version of putting the cart before the horse.

The Pilot Pen has four men's wild cards. One has been promised to Taylor Dent and Isner is almost certain to get one as well considering his recent surge. Isner, slowed by mononucleosis earlier in the year, reached the semifinals in Indianapolis, quarterfinals in Los Angeles and he will play Tomas Berdych in the final of the four quarterfinals tonight in D.C. James Blake's foot injury forced him to pull out of the D.C. event as well as the next tour stop in Montreal and it is looking more and more likely that he would request a wild card for some match preparation heading into the U.S. Open. That would leave one wild card left and if veteran American Robby Ginepri, who won the Indianapolis title last month, were to ask for one I don't see how the tournament, which is run by the USTA, would tell him "no thanks" and give one to Gasquet. I realize that is a lot of "what ifs" but the point is that Gasquet has not been given a wild card yet.

James Blake withdrew from next week's Rogers Cup in Montreal, the second consecutive tournament he has been unable to play because of an injured foot suffered while playing for the U.S. Davis Cup team in Croatia.

According to a post on Blake's official site, he was set to meet with the doctors again on Wednesday and is still hoping to play in Cincinnati. Until Blake gets some good news on his foot, his status for the next couple of weeks is up in the air but it seems a lot more likely that Blake would request a wild card into the Pilot Pen than it did a couple weeks ago.

The only tennis Blake has played since Wimbledon came with a pair of losses in the Davis Cup tie against Croatia. That would leave him with just the Cincinnati event as preparation for the U.S. Open.

I found it a tad bit ironic that he announced his withdrawal from Montreal in the same entry on his web site that promoted a new brand of footwear the "Thomas Reynolds" Fila line named after his late father. I hope they weren't the tennis shoes Blake was wearing when he suffered his foot injury because something tells me that would not be a huge selling point if news got out that he suffered the injury while breaking in a new brand of tennis shoe.

The strongest women's qualifying field in the history of the Pilot Pen features rising American star Melanie Oudin and former top 20 players Maria Kirilenko, Shahar Peer and Tamarine Tanasugarn.

The top seed in qualifying is No. 41 Sara Errani, who reached finals at Palermo (Italy) and Portoroz (Slovenia) last month. Errani was a lucky loser in last year’s Pilot Pen and reached second round before losing in three sets to Agnes Szavay.

The second seed is No. 45 Magdalena Rybarikova owns four top 20 wins including victories over Jie Zheng and Na Li en route to first career title at Birmingham, England.

No. 91 Kirsten Flipkens is the last player to gain direct entry into qualifying.

Among those on the alternate list are 2004 Pilot Pen women's singles champion Elena Bovina, who would need a wild card since she is currently the No. 52 alternate and Karolina Sprem, who peaked at No. 17 in the rankings back in 2004. Alexa Glatch, Vania King, Julie Ditty, Madison Brengle, Lauren Albanese, Lilia Osterloh and NCAA singles champion Mallory Cecil, who emerged out of qualifying to reach the main draw of the 2008 Pilot Pen, are among the Americans on the alternate list.

For the sake of full disclosure, consider this fair warning that a shameless plug alert is coming next.

There was a nice piece in today Register by Emily Nadelmann about the Rossetti brothers' attempt to break their own record for continuous tennis strokes. Angelo and Ettore set the record of 24,696 and are shooting for 30,000 on Aug. 15 as part of the "Rally 4 Cure" from 9 a.m.-midnight at the Milford Indoor Tennis Club.

Of the five ATP and WTA tournaments being contested this week, three were won by players in the Pilot Pen main draw and another was taken by a player on the alternate list.

The biggest surprise came at the Bank of West Classic in Stanford, Calif. Venus Williams, the only four-time winner in the history of the Pilot Pen Tennis tournament, dropped just five games in routine wins over Maria Sharapova and Elena Dementieva. It seemed a mere formality when Williams squared off against Marion Bartoli in the finals. However, Bartoli refused to be pushed around by the powerful Williams and had she not had a serving hiccup, she would have dispatched Williams in straight sets. After failing to close the deal in two sets, Bartoli regrouped for a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 win.

On the men's side, Nikolay Davydenko and Sam Querrey won the titles at Umag, Croatia and Los Angeles respectively.

Davydenko continued his post-Wimbledon surge by rolling to the title on the clay courts of Umag. He defeated former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-3, 6-0 in Sunday's final and should climb a spot to No. 8 when the new rankings come out tomorrow.

In Los Angeles, Sam Querrey defeated Carsten Ball, a member of Australia's Davis Cup team but a Newport Beach, Calif. native and resident, in the finals. Querrey overcome some service struggles in the second set to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 to earn his his title of the season. Querrey had lost in the Newport and Indianapolis finals in his previous two tournaments and will break into the top 30 for the first time when the rankings come out tomorrow.

Brazil's Thomasz Bellucci, who was the No. 45 alternate when the list of direct acceptances into the Pilot Pen men's singles draw was released, defeated Pilot Pen main draw entrant Andreas Beck of Germany 6-4, 7-6 to win the championship at Gstaad, Switzerland. It was Bellucci's first career ATP title.

There was other good news on the women's side when Melanie Oudin, set to enter the New Haven qualifying draw, played her way through qualifying to earn a spot in an U.S. Open Series event main draw for the second week in a row. Oudin needed to outlast Melanie South of Great Britain 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the final round of qualifying in Los Angeles on Sunday.

While foot injuries can be a bit tricky for tennis players, one has to wonder if the decision of two-time Pilot Pen men's singles champion James Blake to pull out of the upcoming tournament in Washington because of a foot injury could begin a chain of events resulting in the former Fairfield resident returning to New Haven.

On Blake's official site, there is a report that Blake hurt his foot while in Croatia for a Davis Cup tie and his participation in the Rogers Cup event in Montreal is no sure thing or as it was put on his official web site "nothing's certain for the moment."

Blake is not currently entered into the Aug. 21-29 Pilot Pen but that could change considering that the former top five player has not won a match since Andy Roddick had to retire in the first set of the Queens Club semifinals because of a foot injury on June 13.

The Pilot Pen has three available men's singles main draw wild cards and would give one to Blake without hesitation if the 2005 and 2007 champion in New Haven were to request one.