Dish-Houston

YEAH!! Tennis is sooooo happening in Houston RIGHT NOW!! Yesterday's results were strong and tonight will be DOMINATED by James Blake and Sam Querrey!

See you at the ROCC, DISHIES!

RESULTS - SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 2012
QUALIFYING SECOND ROUND
[1] Go Soeda (JPN) d Robby Ginepri (USA) 64 64
[2] Horacio Zeballos (ARG) d (WC) Nicholas Naumann (USA) 63 61
[3] Ricardo Mello (BRA) d Peter Polansky (CAN) 75 63
[4] Michael Russell (USA) d Denes Lukacs (HUN) 64 75
[5] Tommy Haas (GER) d Chris Wettengel (USA) 63 63
Catalin-Ionut Gard (ROU) d [6] Teymuraz Gabashvili (RUS) 75 46 62
Daniel Kosakowski (USA) d [7] Yuichi Sugita (JPN) 76(4) 64
Jan Hernych (CZE) d [8] Michael Yani (USA) 76(5) 10 ret.
 

ORDER OF PLAY - MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2012
Stadium Court start 12:00 pm
Qualifying - [4] Michael Russell (USA) vs Daniel Kosakowski (USA)
Qualifying - [1] Go Soeda (JPN) vs [5] Tommy Haas (GER)
Michael Kohlman (GER) & Alexander Waske (GER) vs (WC) Robert Kendrick (USA) & Ryan Sweeting (USA)
Not Before 6:00 pm
(6) Carlos Berlocq (ARG) vs James Blake (USA)
Eric Prodon (FRA) vs Sam Querrey (USA)

COURT 3 start 12:00 pm
Qualifying - [2] Horacio Zeballos (ARG) vs Jan Hernych (CZE)
Qualifying - [3] Ricardo Mello (BRA) vs Catalin-Ionut Gard (ROU)
Not Before 4 p.m.
Bjorn Phau (GER) vs Diego Junqueira (ARG)

NOTES
- Monday nights' schedule includes a pair of former finalists in Americans James Blake (2008) and Sam Querrey (2010).
- A preliminary schedule for the week has been set. This schedule is subject to change.
TUESDAY: Night session will feature defending champion Ryan Sweeting against a qualifier.
WEDNESDAY: Afternoon session will feature American rising star Ryan Harrison against No. 7 Alex Bogomolov, Jr. The night session will feature No. 3 Feliciano Lopez in his first match of the tournament.
THURSDAY: The first matches for No. 1 Mardy Fish, No. 2 John Isner and No. 4 Juan Monaco will all be held, but the sessions are still to be determined.
- This marks the second year in a row a former champion has played in qualifying at the US Men's Clay Court Championship. Tommy Haas, who has a bye in the 2012 qualifying draw, won the event in 2004. The 2007 champion Ivo Karlovic successfully qualified last year.
- Qualifying is a rare event for Tommy Haas. This is just the seventh time since he began playing on the ATP World Tour in 1996 that he has played qualifying. He has successfully reached the main draw just twice in his previous six attempts, including last fall in Vienna where he reached the quarterfinals.
- Five participants in the US Men's Clay Court Championship are playing Davis Cup this weekend. Ryan Harrison and John Isner represented the U.S. in a win over France, Ivo Karlovic  played for Croatia at Argentina where Juan Monaco was on the team, and Joao Souza represented Brazil in a home zonal tie against Colombia.

ONLY LIMITED TICKETS REMAIN for the 2012 US Men’s Clay Court Championship. Information on tickets can be found at www.mensclaycourt.com or by calling 713-527-0345. Once again, the US Men’s Clay Court Championship will provide the Texas Children’s Ticket Turnback program. Any fans holding tickets for a session that they cannot use are invited to return those tickets to the box office where they will be sold for face value and the entire resale price will be donated to Texas Children’s Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Institute.

Tennis fever has clearly hit Houston!! Mardy Fish became the No. 1 player from the U.S. on Wednesday with a straight sets win over David Ferrer in the Miami quarterfinals. When the new rankings are released Monday, Fish will be ranked higher than Andy Roddick, who has been the top American since 2008. Fish is projected to climb from his current career high of No. 15 to No. 11 by reaching the Miami semifinals, and would likely reach the Top 10 if he were to advance to the Miami final.

Ryan Sweeting's wild card brings the total number of Americans in the field for 2011 to eight, including six of the seven Americans who are ranked in the Top 100. The 23-year-old played a brief collegiate career at the University of Florida and was the 2005 US Open junior champion. This will be Sweeting's third main draw appearance in Houston, including last year when he reached the second round as a qualifier before falling to Chile's Nicolas Massu in a third set.

Four players have been added to the field this week. In addition to Sweeting, former Australian Open finalist Rainer Schuettler of Germany, Russian Igor Kunitsyn and Germany's Mischa Zverev have joined the field. Schuettler took the place of 2010 champion Juan Ignacio Chela, who withdrew for personal reasons, while Kunitsyn and Daniel entered the field after all possible special exempt spots from Miami were eliminated.

Twenty-four of the field of 28 players has been set, with four more to enter through this weekend's qualifying tournament, including Americans James Blake and Ryan Harrison, who join Sweeting as the wild card entrants. The top four seeds for this year's event will be Fish at No. 1, 2010 finalist Sam Querrey at No. 2, Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez at No. 3 and American John Isner at No. 4. These four players will have first round byes.

DISH will have tickets to give away so follow us on TWITTER or Facebook to win your tickets!