One thing you notice here in New Haven is how big a deal James Blake is to the tournament. They've banked themselves on him in years past but now that he's sliding out of relevancy it can't be a coincidence that the tournament may not exist next year (Pilot Pen is withdrawing its sponsorship after this year). After cruising to a 35 minute win two days ago, he went out in just over an hour to Dolgo this afternoon. They have a designated J-Block section at the top of the stadium with a "J-Block" banner. They took the banner down by the time the night session started.
I'm not sure Blah knows what he wants to do after all this. Last week he said he would take a break after the US Open to think about things. Today he said he hasn't ruled out playing Challengers to get his ranking up. So who knows.
But I suppose the corollary to that question, rather cruelly, is "Who cares?"
In other dude news, Marcos came back from a set down to beat Chela, Evgeny won, Lucky Loser Steps scored a tough three set win over Hanescu, and Viktor scored a nice win over Dolgo, who had to play his second match of the day. I'm interested to see where Dolgo falls in the USO draw tomorrow. I think he could play the role of a spoiler. The dude's got game and is riding a confidence wave right now.
