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.

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.

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.

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.

When the new ATP rankings are released on Monday, the second-ranked American player will be a member of the men's main draw at next month's Pilot Pen Tennis tournament.

No, two-time champion James Blake has not decided to enter (although if he doesn't start winning a match or two, that could change). Mardy Fish, the first player to commit to play in New Haven, will jump over Blake regardless of what happens in the Los Angeles event this week.

Heading into the week, Blake led his good friend and current neighbor by 130 points in the standings. But with the results of last year's Cincinnati event set to expire at the end of the week, Blake will lose 150 points by advancing to the Round of 16 while Fish had just 10 points to defend since he lost his first-round match in Cincinnati.

Fish is the No. 2 seed in LA so he could move up further but he should end up no worse than No. 20, the first time he's been in the top 20 since mid March. On the other end of the spectrum, Blake will fall out of the top 20 for the first time since Feb. 27, 2006. The last time Fish was ranked ahead of Blake came on Aug. 15, 2005 when Fish was No. 65, five spots ahead of Blake.

With Blake set to lose 350 points on Aug. 17 courtesy of his run to the 2008 Olympic semifinals, there is a chance that the former Fairfield resident could end the year as the No. 4 ranked American behind Andy Roddick, Fish and Sam Querrey (although Querrey has some work to do to catch Blake).

Fish and Querrey are both entered - and seeded - in Los Angeles while Blake won't play his first post-Wimbledon match until next week's event in Washington, D.C.

With Nikolay Davydenko beating Paul-Henri Mathieu in the Hamburg, Germany final, the Pilot Pen men's field now has two top 10 players.

Davydenko was already entered and ranked 11th at the time that the direct entries were announced. He actually dropped a spot last week to 12th but Davydenko's 15th career ATP title brings with it an additional 500 points.

While math is always my strong point and the ranking system is a little more confusing this year because only a certain among of smaller tournament (like the Pilot Pen) can count toward the ranking points and last year's Olympics altered the order of the summer events. But if I am following everything correctly, Davydenko will move from No. 12 to 9, Fernando Verdasco will fall a place to No. 10 followed by Fernando Gonzalez and Robin Soderling.

Here is how I reached that conclusion.

Davydenko loses 150 points from last year's U.S. Open Series event in Canada (which will come off the rankings on Monday) but gains 500 for winning the Hamburg title moving him from 2,935 to 3,285.

Verdasco began the week with 3,270 points and the 70 points he earned in Canada last year will come off the database putting him at 3,200.

Gonzalez loses 70 points from his result in Canada in 2008 and should have 3,115 while Soderling drops the 150 points he gained in Canada to check in with 2,920.

Considering that Davydenko only loses 50 points from the 2008 Olympics (which will fall from the rankings on Aug. 15) and the only points he has to defend the rest of the summer are the 10 points from Cincinnati, he figures to be in the top 10 for a while.

Pilot Pen commit Sam Querrey could also continue his rise up the rankings today if he beats fellow American Robby Ginepri in the Indianapolis final. If Querrey wins, he could end up jumping seven spots to No. 30 and could end up at No. 32 even with a loss. Ginepri, who is on the New Haven alternate list and would seem to be a lock for a wild card into the Pilot Pen main draw if he is so inclined, would jump 19 spots to No. 76 with a loss today while he would break into the top 60 if he wins the title. The Querrey/Ginepri final will be televised live at 3 p.m. on ESPN2 with the winner taking the early lead in the U.S. Open Series standings.